26/11

Will somebody please explain/ rationalise/ decode/ make sense out of what's happening in Mumbai in particular and India in general? I doubt there's a single aware individual who's unaffected today by the sheer horror of what's happening around us. It's an incredibly crazy situation that scares the hell out of you. What do I tell my 7 year old daughter who woke up today morning at 6 o'clock and caught us watching the news...What could I have said to her when she held my hand and asked me if all this was ever going to stop or if this was going to be a part of her life. I don't want my kids to grow up in the shadow of this senseless terror, none of us do. But is there a way out? Even at the risk of sounding pessimistic, I have to confess that today I feel hopelessly helpless. One goes to bed with news of a terror attack and wakes up with even more shocking updates. The day is spent surfing numerous sites and flipping channels, calling up friends to enquire about their well being. What kind of a life is this? What kind of a democracy is this where the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life is not valued at all? The whole thing is like one big joke. The terrorists take over the financial capital of the country, do as they like, go where they wish to, kill whoever happens to cross their path and all we are left with are a couple of images and two minutes of footage of some guy wearing a "Versace polo neck sweatshirt and a sling bag" walking out of CST after indiscriminately shooting at about 20 odd people. What about the hostages, the guests who were out to have a nice dinner with their family and friends to unwind after a hard day's work or people travelling on business whose families will never see them again? What about the Taj GM whose entire family got wiped out in one freak twist of fate? What about the 125 people who are dead and gone, the 300 odd injured? And that's just the loss we can account for, the loss we can quantify. What about the intangible damage in the form of fear psychosis, distrust and loss of faith? What about the innumerable questions that need urgent answers? Who is responsible for us, to us? Can we even think of relying on the system anymore to protect our very lives and those of our loved ones?
The head is swimming with the images of the day. I pray with all my heart for the people going through this ordeal, the hostages, their families and all the victims of this mindless violence. 

The only thing that makes sense is what seems most unattainable at the moment....the words of Rabindranath Tagore:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Amen!