Being Indian: A matter of Pride or Disgust?

In Memoriam

NSG

Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan

Havildar Gajendra Singh

Mumbai Police

Jt. Commissioner (ATS) Hemant Karkare

Ad. Commissioner Ashoke Kamte

Inspector Vijay Salaskar

Sub-Inspector Bapusaheb Durgude

Sub-Inspector Prakash More

ASI Balasaheb Bhonsle

ASI tukaram Gopal Omble

Constable Ambadas Pawar

Constable Arun Chitte

Constable Jayawant Patil

Constable Vijay Khandekar

Constable Yogesh Patil

Other Security Personnel

Inspector Shashank Shinde

Head Constable M.C. Chowdhary

Home Guard Constable Mukesh Jadhav

Constable Rahul Shinde

Are you proud to be an Indian, posed with this question almost each and everyone of us is going to answer in the affirmative. After all don't we possess a rich cultural heritage, hail from a land that gave the world zero and the decimal point, are an emerging superpower with some of the best brains in the world? Indeed what all I said till now is true. But now I would urge you to stop for a moment and reflect. Reflect upon the fact that we hail from a country that has had it's Parliament attacked, doesn't care a bit about meritocracy, whose politicians are hell bent on deepening and indeed creating communal divides just so that they can retain their power, and to top it all, we hail from a country that was besieged by a handful of terrorists for 60 hours on 26/11. Feel disgusted yet? At least I do.

And this is not all. What disgusts me most is that we have come to such a situation that the politicians and the bureucracy of the country no longer care for the life of the citizens of this country. For them one more terrorist attack, more civilian casualties are just mere statistics. All goes as long as they can retain their vote banks.

Our internal security apparatus is a mess. And if we hadn't realized this till now, 26/11 proved it beyond any doubt. Critical intelligence had been ignored in the midst of the inter-agency squabbles. The RAW and the IB blamed the agencies such as the Coast Guard and the Navy for ignoring the intelligence provided while the latter said that intelligence was not actionable. Not actionable? Yeah right. As has been credibly proven, specific intelligence of an imminent attack on the 5 star hotels of the city via the sea route had been passed to the agencies. Intelligence becomes actionable by the ingenuity and the innovative attitude with which it is analyzed. We can't expect the terrorists to send us an invitation letter and requesting us to RSVP to the attack.

Moreover we have been guilty of pushing intelligence reports through just as if they were routine files, not beothering to follow up whether the intelligence has been processed and acted upon or not.

If anything, 26/11 also exposed our utter lack of preparedness to deal with an attack on our nation. With so many agencies around, there was bound to be confusion and it turned into chaos for nobody knew who was in charge! What we needed a cetral authority figure to coordinate our efforts against the terrorists but none was to be found. Our disaster management strategies showed up for what they were: crap.

Our Prime Minister, Dr. Singh, had stated just before 26/11 that we can not afford to be hit again. But we were. What we need now is to wake up from the slumber and realize the mess that we are in. We can't get into any more trouble because we already are in a big one! We need a well equipped and trained police force under the leadership of independent and visionary officers who realize and understand the gravity of the problem that confronts us. And we need to usher in meritocracy. At once! For as an individual who cherishes his life, I want to be sure that it's the best who's working to ensure my safety. I cretainly don't want any dimwit analyzing crucial intelligence just because he happened to be born in a certain family, with a certain lineage. If the powers that be are so concerned about social equlity and undoings the wrongs of the past, let them take a personal initiative. Let their security teams be manned and indeed led by those who ahve been wronged, let their attending doctors be the ones whose forefathers had been oppressed.

India has tremendous potential and the ability to be a world leader. But it remains just that: potential. To harness the potential we need to make certain choices. And it would be these choices that would determine our fate. For didn't Dumbledore, that old wise fellow, said, It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. We can choose to reform our system now, or wait till we are hit again and again, till we collapse. The choice, as I said, is ours. And ours only.

Ramblings

Nothing's left. Not anymore. Though it won't seem that way. You would have to scratch the surface for that. It all seems hunky dory, when the truth is that it's in shambles; held together by the wariness that accompanies destroying the status-quo with very little time left.

Yeah, that's what it is. A desire to let the illusion be. For then all could part pretending nothing was amiss. Then there won't have to be difficult conversations and painful confessions.

Sweeping the dust under the carpet never cleaned a room but it does provides a semblance of cleanliness in a short frame of time. Oh how right was the one who said, Ignorance is Bliss! If only, I was.

Death

All who have been born shall die. It's inevitable. Death visits us all and yet we live constantly fearing what is bound to happen, under the shadow of its dread, always fearing its arrival. I often wonder why.

A wise man had once said that death is always beside us and it is death that gives us the courage and the strength to perfrom difficult tasks. So go ahead and make the call that you have been psotponing for so long, have that conversation that you know you ought to have.

Let death be a reminder to us to live each moment of our life fully. Let it ensure that we behave normally but not lose the maverick inside us. Let it ensure that we remain crazy!

Till Death do us apart...

The Protege

He stirred the ice cubes in his vodka with a finger. As if not satisfied with what he felt, he picked up another couple of cubes and added them to the glass. The plonking of the ice cubes was the only sound that came out of the dark room. He resumed his stirring without as much as a second glance at the glass as if he were in a trance. He then picked the glass up and drained it in one gulp. Just then his cell phone beeped to signal the arrival of a message. He had no doubt it was her. His hand moved towards the table but it completely ignored the cell, instead he reached out to the near empty bottle lying there. He moved the bottle in his hands, gazing at the shimmering liquid inside. He put the bottle to hsi lips and drained its contents. And then, as was inevitable, he collapsed in his chair.

~

It was still dark outside when he woke up with chainsaws and jackhammers pounding in his head. The digital clock, displayed prominently on his desktop, showed the time to be 4:52:37 am. As he was trying to rouse himself  from the mires of slumber he was aware of an irritating buzz coming from somewhere near him.  He groped in the dark till he found the source of his irritation: it was his cellphone. Not yet fully awake, he pressed the answer button, and a groggy voice, that was not quite his own, said hello. 

Caller: Why have you been ignoring me?

It was her. The sound of her voice pierced through the alcohol induced sleep and suddenly his bloodshot eyes were wide open. As he spoke the next line, What do you think, the words themselves seemed to taste bitter, for he spat before continuing Are you sure that's the question that you want to ask?

to be continued

If you want something, look the other person in the eye.

The Witch

Shrouded in a veil of mystery she moves

Creeping up like the chill in autumn

Stealing those who are cherished

And are naive enough to trust

Dining together

Dancing away merrily ever after

All the time stroking Satan's fire 

Who's fault is it

Their's.. Her's..?

Or is it 

That of Satan himself?

alvidaa alvidaa...

Goodbyes are not forever.

 Goodbyes are not the end.

 They simply mean I'll miss you 

Until we meet again!

Breaking Free!!!

Sparks

Sparks were bound to fly when stubborness met the whims of satan. And they did!

Crap

This is going to be a crappy post. So readers, beware!!

I wanted to do something on the tradition of April the 1st being celebrated as the Fool's Day. But as it happens am too tired to do a proper post. And so am just gonna list down some random things...

These are the wrappers lying around in my half of the room (all of which have been consumed by yours truly over the last couple of months or so)

Britannia Bourbon cream (my childhood favourite.. :) )

Rasna fruitplus (lemon flavour!!)

Classic Elaichi cream

Lays Classic Salted

Sunfeast Dark Fantasy (love these!! an absolute delight!! )

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Dairy Milk fruit and nuts!!

Five star

Five star crunchy

Five start fruit and nuts!!

Monaco (now where did this come from :O)

Sunfeast Bourbon cream

Seven Up bottle

Coke bottle

An empty Real Juice 1L pack (I seriously need to clean my room!! )

Some loacl brand namkeen

Kit Kat

Thums Up bottle

Lots of Himalya Koflet wrappers

Small wrappers in which the beasn ke ladoos I brought from home were wrapped

ohk there's a lot more crap lying around my room but am bored of writing about it!! Blaaaahhhh!!