In less than 24 hours after seven bombs rocked Mumbai life has come back to normalcy. People have started traveling by trains and buses again and the parking lots, shopping malls and cinema house are full. Its business as usual.

Oh yes 98.99 per cent of the working population reported to work –everyone except those dead, severely injured and their families are at work). No there is no paranoia of any sort and neither are there any protests to demand justice for the dead. And why protest? the government is doing its job as usual the police force has already started to suspect the SIMI, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Al Queda.

The politicians are doing business as usual blame the terrorists, condemn the attacks, attack the ruling party oh yes show sympathy to the victims. Every politician small and big has visited the victims at the hospitals — in fact have even taken pictures and shook hands even (like some rock-star at a concert).

Hatrick of Letdowns

And yes the media is back to business as well, every horrible gory picture with blood stains and wounds and people crying has been captured and printed or telecast. They have even made heroes out of common men. ” I lifted this guy when he was bleeding all over and took him to the hospital” how heroic? “We donated our new bed sheet so people could be carried” how generous?

I gave a lift to three people, Also at some corner you find that hospitals are still short of 1600 bottles of blood. But Bombay is great people help themselves… they are heroes not common men with some sanity and humanity left in them….. And the best part is they never Crib or Cry they are resilient — not grossly indifferent– they are back to work the next day…

In fact some are en thinking and hoping that the government will do something? After the government has scored a hatrick of let downs, first the Bombay rains, then a political party held the city to ransom and now bomb blasts. But sadly it’s nobody business to demand a better sense of security or better administration. Also, unfortunately nobody is in the business of spreading peace or love… we are only shamelessly pointing fingers at each other!

Raise Your Voices

I am sure some of you relatives were plain lucky as they never left home yesterday, some other were luckier as they were on the same train but escaped unhurt. (Thank God for that) But for god’s sake let’s not remain silent. Tolerance beyond the point of adversity is nothing but cowardice. Who knows, next around you and me may not be as lucky… But until next time Mumbai is back to business– the business of outsmarting the other at the blame game and shutting out the voices of humanity and concentrating on the work on hand.

Please visit the nearby hospitals to donate blood. And please raise your voices in protest. And please forward this with your comments to as many people as possible.

GK Seshan