Spirit and Resilience

First of all, it is sad that we have to witness blasts after blasts in India, with the Govt. not doing anything about it. It has even rejected the laws that were supposed to be approved to counter terrorism. The person, who was responsible for the homeland security, was busy changing his designer labels. He wore a green Bandhgala at 5PM. After which the blasts in Delhi took place in 20 minutes. He was seen wearing Grey Bandhgala after an hour at 6PM and wore a White suit for the press briefing at 7PM. When asked about bringing back the POTA at the time, when POTA would have possibly helped to avoid the Delhi Disaster, , all he repeated was the oft repeated statement. 'This is not the right forum to discuss this'. Well guys, Mr. Home minister wanted the people to discuss his sartorial sense (or rather the lack of it) I believe. When there were reports that Mr. Shivraj Patil was not included in the CWC meeting and was supposedly under the axe, he came forward to media and emphatically announced "I have the blessings of my party leader". Talk about sycophancy and boot licking. On the other hand Mr. Khurshid announces that his party would not allow him to have consensus with opposition on the topic of Terrorism. Man this Govt. needs to be voted out badly.
I was reading about a statement where Abhishek Bacchan was interviewed about him missing the blasts, because he cancelled an appointment at omega store in CP, Delhi. Following was the question asked to him and his reply to it.
Suhasini Haidar: Do you think it is about our resilience, because we spoke about Mumbai’s resilience. Is it about resilience or have we become a bit immune to the impacts?
Abhishek Bachchan: No I don’t think anybody can be immune to something like this. I think we, as Indians are very resilient. We are a strong nation. I don’t think despite whatever happens, its not possible to get immune to something like this. The resilience and the pride in what we do as a nation does come through in a time like this.
So my question is what defines resilience of the City or the spirit of a City as they romanticize it. Is it that the city comes right on the track the very next day as if nothing has happened the previous day? That the people go to work as usual as if there was no body dead on yesterday? So is it not the ruthlessness of the people that they do not bother about their neighbors or the co-commuters. Is it not foolishness that people don’t stop to introspect or retrospect, to see what has gone wrong? Is that a spirit of city?
Well I don’t think so. I think it is the inherent nature of the demographic & lifestyle of the city. Mr. Bacchan has lived a privileged life studying at Bombay Scottish, Aiglon College(Switzerland) and Boston university, living in an house that is guarded as a mini fortress and driving cars and women both of which turn heads. Not that he should have any qualms about them. But i would like to believe he has no or little idea of what this so called 'resilience' stems from; else i don’t think that such a statement would have been made.
It is often said that 'Fools rush in where the angels fear to tread’. I don’t think that a normal person would like to visit the haunted stations, trains and market places where the bomb blasts have taken place. A person visits this place to earn his livelihood not because he likes going thru the route. It is a compulsion more than the choice. It is because he knows that another person is willing to be present at his workplace, who could be given his job, unlike the film stars who can afford to take a day off at their whims. Any city that has struggle for survival is bound to display such an on the face attitude towards terrorist acts. The only reason that New York could not take the 9/11 attacks in its strides was because
1. The scale of the attacks
2. Americans have never experienced anything of this magnitude since Pearl Harbor and hence they were over confident of their security.
3. The struggle for survival is nowhere near that of Indian cities, which are densely populated and hence there is a lot more competition for survival.
It is the competition and the hardship that produces people to beat this fear and go through the haunted places. So in all i would say that circumstances and the struggle are the main reason for people to go on with their jobs and take bombings in strides without waiting for an introspection. Bravery is not lack of fear, but refusing to submit to it. So in all I would say that people present in the cities where the bombing took place (and that includes almost every major Indian city) are brave, but not because it is an inherent quality and it would be a wrong statement to say we are resilient as a nation, but because of the times and circumstances that we live in (or rather we have ourselves created for ourselves to live in, by irresponsible voting).
God give strength to the people to withstand the loss of their near and dear ones. May the deceased's souls reset in peace.