Sitting Ducks

It is a gloomy, cloudy, misty day, full of intermittent rain and chilly. exactly the sort of day I would have revelled in were it not for the horrific events of the past three days, three full days, that is how long it has been since our vulnerability was thrown in our face, we were made aware of how at risk all our near and dear ones are, every day of the week, wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing. What has happened in Mumbai while being very shocking and terrible, is nothing new to any of us, the world as a whole has been targetted to increasing and ever novel episodes of terror wherein the perpetrators manage to catch us sleeping, every single time, without fail, and the worst part tis how delayed our responses are, we tend to go from a state of denial to slow acceptance and then try to figure out how to get things going,,by the time we roll, three days have gone by, hundreds lives lost and a valuable heritage desecrated.

How much is our defence budget made up of? I hardly think we are lagging behind as far as fund allocations and proposals go, when it comes to the actual procuring and buying of stuff, we are made aware of how inadequate our situation is when we see our brave troops go in to face a situation, say like the one that unfolded over these past few days, with Ancient, musket-type guns and then the NSGs are dropped off at the site of action by bus, like tourists on a field trip,, it is only through sheer bravery and grit, combined with the incomparable sacrifice of life and limb by some of the bravest sons of our country, that we are anywhere near to getting control over the situation. How ridiculously under prepared and underarmed we manage to look in comparison to the attackers, I really think our Defence Minister needs to get on the Net and skim through a few brochures for the latest arms or maybe he should set up a meeting with the terrorist who has been caught alive and get some contacts and visiting cards out of him,, put it all to good use so that next time around, it is a much more even match.

People are saying idiotic things that centre around a particular community and one of our neighbouring nations, Stupid thing to do rather than try and secure our homes and lives, we are trying to find scrape-goats,, how does it matter who they are? Terrorists have no face, no religion, no nationality, they are just perpetrators of death and doom, the only way to fight the threat is by improving our defence system, not only at our borders but at our houses, our lanes and our villages. This does not mean subjecting us all to body searches at every street corner and every street store, they are necessary but more importantly, we should have a central body, autonomous of course, in place whose sole purpose would be to take the correct decision, within minutes, the next time we face a threat, any kind of threat, and put it into action, even before the killers realise what retaliation they can expect. That is the only way we will be able to make our lives a little bit safer, a little more secure.

I take my hat off to the brave souls who helped save so many lives, including the staff at the Taj, and I also salute all of them because they have shown the courage to stand up and fight.

My heart goes out to all who have lost their lives and to all their families, it is they who have to live on, with all the pain.

I also sincerely hope our leaders think hard and long before coming out with any sort of soothing messages, and suggest that rather than waste time trying to play any blame games and waste too much time on post-mortems of what we went through, they sit down and think out strategies to make us stronger, safer.