Bomb lasts

Hey Fellas, This is my first crack at blogging. So please bear with me and constructive criticism is greatly valued.
This was written in the aftermath of bomb blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore. I have delayed the posting of the same blog since I believed that I had lost way while writing this piece. But after assurances provided by some of my friends, I am posting it.
Way back, when I was roaming on the streets of Bangalore, with Bangalore at its beautiful best in the evening with an over cast sky and all the splendid greenery, I regretted being single and not having a partner in such a romantic weather. But there was a bigger regret than that; it allowed me to have a look at an interesting article(oxymoron: I regret coming across an interesting article). It was 2004, and a congress led government had replaced NDA at the centre against all odds & my expectations (You must have known by now that I really don’t like congress. Worry not, after a couple of blogs it will get worse). It was then that I came across a newspaper ‘Tehelka’. I still remember the headlines, “Casteless Sonia and Classless Communists will save India”. I don’t think I need to mention that the weekly was unabashedly a leftist and a “secular” (or as I call it pseudo-secular) newspaper. The article mentioned that people were reading too much into the sensex, Forex and the FDI that was on high in India. Do I need to mention more about the sycophancy of the magazine ?
Coming back to 2008, bomblasts in both my beloved cities of Bangalore and then Ahmedabad. Don’t know whether the Government is trying to protect the common man (with the common man’s hand being it’s symbol) from the terrorists or the other way round (as in the case of Afzal Guru). Called up folks and friends in both the places and inquired if everyone was ok. Again cursed the UPA govt. which thinks that security in India is a joke. After a couple of days thought of having a look at tehelka, whether it had to still bash Mr. Modi for maintaining the communal harmony and protecting the minorities (Well another thing that I don’t understand over here is 1. Do these white collared media people think that the people other than the minorities are vicious devils, who are in prowl of the minorities? 2. If they account for some rights in the country ( a place where they are supposedly believed to be a majority) and if their lives have any values in the eyes of NGOs ?). So I checked out the page, there was one interesting article written by Miss. Teesta Setalvad. Miss Setalvad is born and brought up in Mumbai, and will be best remembered for her battle for and against Zaheera Shaikh. She is very interested in the state and the people residing in Gujarat. Not that I mind it, I would have rather appreciated it if it was not for her jaundiced and biased view of Gujarat and gujaratis (Gujaratis used here with reference to people residing in Gujarat). The full article can be found at the following address
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808somegood.asp
There were couple of things that caught my eye.
1. She believes that we gujaratis have abandoned the values of Justice, acknowledgement and forgiveness. I think the communal harmony prevailing in Gujarat is the greatest testimony that we (Gujaratis) have maintained peace. I would have liked to know what would have happened in Countries like Isreal or USA if there would have been 50 odd bomblasts in two of it’s main cities in the space of 48 hours.
2. Furthermore she believes that we don’t want lasting peace. I would like to draw her attention to the fact that 2002 riots have been before 6 years and if anything, there was lasting damage to Gujaratis(I don’t classify them as ‘minorities’ or ‘majorities’). So anybody in their right senses would not want the rehash of 2002 Godhra riots. If Miss. Setalwaad still believes that Gujaratis do not want communal harmony and peace, I believe that she is assuming that we are incapable of deciding what is good for ourselves.
3. Also she mentions that Mr. Modi had maintained peace and harmony in Gujarat because there was a national response for peace. Well I would like to add, that I have doctor friends whose seniors passed away in the explosions in the hospitals in Ahmedabad and still they were working round the clock dutifully to serve the victims, irrespective or their caste and creed. This was because Guajarati’s wanted lasting peace and not because there was national pressure on us.
Well, Looks like this can go on and on. Recently I saw the movie ‘A Wednesday’. There was an interesting dialogue in the end, when the inspector asks Naseeruddin Shah whether he was killing the terrorists if any of his relative had died in the Mumbai Tran blasts, to which Naseeruddin Shah replies “Though none of my have died, but I do not want to wait till they died at the hands of terrorists”. Let me post this else it might take another two months to post it.
Later,
Karan.