Falling from grace


Adrenalin oozed out. Outraged rants bombarded news channels and newspapers screamed of heartache and anguish. The Mumbai attacks cut open urban India and has exposed flesh bones et al. Everybody whether directly affected or just witnessing the event on the other side of the TV were talking about the territorial and emotional assault on the financial nerve center. All was loud and bright until the dazzle of elections weakened the wick of the candle.

Indeed, couple of months back our tricolour nation took to streets, soul-stirring sms, e-mails and online petitions driving you to play your part and do your bit that you can to make the world a better place to live in. The cream of the crop found their activist voices that apparently fizzed out in a while. And now we're all back to work. The epidemic that everyone was down with soon wiped every essence of its presence. Looks like the movie Ghajini talk about a commonplace disorder…short-term memory loss. For the state of memory of the aam junta is not really different from what the protagonist in the movie suffered from.

Catastrophes like these wake people up from their deep slumber that in turn tries to wake the authorities up. When the terror gun was pointed at Aamchi Mumbai muddled administration of the city and the country as whole raised its ugly head followed by R. R. Patil being replaced by Chhagan Bhujbal as deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. Well, did we forget that he is the same man who was made to resign five years ago after his name cropped up in the Telgi scam? Well. Like I said, short-term memory loss. If 2 years later, god forbid if there is another bomb blast he will resign and a Vilas Rao will be pulled out of the woodwork since public memory would have cooled off by then and his current incompetence would be a haze.

You don’t know how it feels until you are on the other side of the gun and India has been on this tin edgy end more than once. We are definitely under the weather, but we cannot overlook the importance of making things better and breathing cleaner air. Well we have already started a battle, a battle of words… everybody from Mahesh Bhatt to Barkha Dutt to my paperboy have an opinion that goes to the emotional crest. We have Simi Garewal pointing out the brilliance of George Bush's strategy of attack and we should do the same. She even directed our attention to those jhuggis who are displaying green coloured flags.Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi pointed to lipstick painted and powder dabbed faces at candle lit vigils calling them no less than terrorists. Shobha De retorted by saying she is proud of her lipstick and powder and a lifestyle, honestly earned and enjoyed. The policy is if you do not throw a bouquet at me expect a brickbat. It's amazing how quickly we turn the venom on each other at a time of crisis.

Somebody said the crisis has brought India closer together and established us as united, sensitive and humane? Is it or we are back we are. Going about our own affairs and minding our respective businesses slipping into the non-clinical Alzheimer living in our glass cubes where we can definitely see each other but not touch and feel others.

Youngsters said they don’t want a movie about their grief and pain on the glorified 70mm. But will the coming generation remember and feel what we all went through as a collective nation on the ill-fated day? Were there no movies like Buniyaad, Garam Hawa, Gadar, Earth, Pinjar would be able live the pain, grief and anguish what the generation before experienced? It is art, paintings, literature, poetry and cinema that keep something in public consciousness alive. To have awakened somebody you constantly need to stir him.

The my-outrage-is-better-than-your-outrage-and –my-pain-is-deeper-than- your-pain-& -my-grief-is-of-the-greatest-magnitude-&- we-are-holier-than-thou attitude does not work.
So please don't turn a deaf ear. You really matter even if your effort is a drop in the ocean. Especially if you are the one who sends me the millionth SMS or email or facebook invite asking me to wake up. Remember you have to be awake to wake others up.