Thursday, July 14, 2011

Mumbai yet again

I have never come close to the terror that Mumbai and its people (and thousands of others right from Kashmir to the North East) have had to live with. I hope I don't have to. And I hope this is last time I have to wonder about how those people felt.

But I do wonder how hard it must be for them. 2 weeks ago Kumar Sangakkara (yes the cricketer from Sri Lanka) delivered a spectacular speech at the MCC on terror and cricket in his country. Everything he said was so profound and genuine, but this line stayed with me - 'parents would take separate buses so that should anything happen, at least one of them will go back to the children.' I cannot think about it without a lump in my throat. That line kept kept coming back to me as I watched inexperienced and experienced journalists ask stupid questions to people who hadn't had time to wash off the dust from all the blasts.

All those people who died yesterday...so many dreams, so many hopes and probably some bitterness came to an end. And someone else decided to end it for them. We'll never know who, why or probably even how.

This is not the post i started out to write. I was generally thinking about all the hoopla around Mumbai forgetting the fears and stepping out and wondering about my own fears. But that list (yes a long one at that) is silly compared what the people of Mumbai and elsewhere feel in a the face of constant fear.

Of all the rhetoric that's floating around, This one made a lot of sense. Battered housewife is a perfect if unacceptable analogy.

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