Todays' snapshot:
Some more things that stand out from the terrible events. Some questions that is bothering me:

• Two important TV Channels behaving like policitians they condemn. One TV channel sniggers, continuously, about people (socialites, it says, with a nasty, biting lash) who are holding candles to demonstrate solidarity... It continues, throughout its debate, on this gesture of candle holding ... And I could see where that was coming from, this nastiness: so I wished to say, `Shut Up' ! ... Because though I liked your coverage a lot, I think you were behaving just like those grand-standing politicians. You were not attacking the `socialites' but your rival channel. And that was cheap: because a lot of people who held the candle that night were not all there for the limelight -- that is a cheap assessment from you -- a moral judgement that you as TV anchor were not entitled to make....
• I wonder how after the terrorist hijacked a CG vessel, nobody in the concerned departments caught on to the fact... You would think an alert would have been sounded if you lost contact with one of your vessels? No radio contact?
  
• Or, since I do not have the details, let us assume that the terrorists maintained a false contact with the CG control through the navigator, whom they later killed. In a hijack case, you would think the CG would have a code that the navigator could have used to alert them of this danger... Was such a thing in place...? Even debit cards have these codes now, that you can punc in when a robber tries to make you use it, at gunpoint....
  
• I remember reading that after the mobile contact with Sabina Sehgal (TOI journalist) was lost for seven hours, it was tracked to Raigad. What is the meaning of that sentence? No journalist finds it worth to check that it? That small sentence has been worrying me a lot....
  

Resilient city?

Every time there is a crisis in the city -- floods, terror hits, riots, or riot-like situations (belligerent policitics) -- everybody from around the nation, sometimes the world, salute the famous Mumbai spirit.
But while the city bounces with gung ho, you wonder whether it is only the citizens who are resilient. And whether the rest of it gets away with anything just because we, as citizens are strong. I recall that when a fire happened in my house, ordinary residents and simple village boy-security guards saved the devastation from spreading further. The groups meant to protect us let us rather down. Fire engine came 45 mins late, claiming they lost their way and nobody could give them proper direction.
The building security guard chief, whose salary is going out of my pocket, said he/his men were trained only to look at the low-lying floors (mine is on the eight floor, though the fire was billowing out of the window for possibly hours, this was his excuse for not sighting it. As if robbers climb up from the lower floors always?!!And he will take them on only if they pass through the main gate?!!).
The Property Manangement's Office had not renewed the fire fighting equipment maintenance contract -- their excuse, the agency was not responding to phone calls!!! So, despite taking up prime space the water pipes did not work as the poor brave guards try to start them. The plumber was sleeping since nobody in the PMO's office thought to wake him. And the water was not released through the pipes (which any case leaked) since there had been no emergency drill in place......So, there was all this nonsense thrown at us: other residents urged us to file a case against the society (which charges a high maintenance charge, as do most suburban complexes which seems to have their own extra constitutional way of running things out here). But we did not, since we were too traumatised by the event, and relieved to be left alone, to carry on our lone task of cleaning up and chasing duplicate documents (passports, kid's birth certificates, investment papers -- all of which were also burned). Which can be the very hell (only the crooks somehow manage to have five passports here!!).Glaring things,then.

Now too, as the city was rocked by the recent terrorist attack, some images/things that stood out in the terrible events that rocked this city...

• A ruling party spokesman rambling on TV to a pointed question on guarding the coast.. He said it is a big coast. (Yes, we know that. But these guys landed under our nosetip -- if that is not protected...!!!). They landed just a few yards off the state police headquarters, close to the city's administrative center, ministerial residences, financial centers, the super-rich residences.... If we could not stop that, sure we have no control over the rest of that sprawling coastline too..Chilling thought...
  
• The doctor couple, battling to save the Taj staffer: the five-star hotel's first aid box did not enough guaze and no painkillers, as the poor man's bowels spilled out.
  
• Simple vendors pushing handcarts with bodies/injured people on them?? Our crisis management...?? They keep saying Disaster management is in place?
  
• Luggage trolleys to carry out injured... Crisis management??
• And though the terrorists had the floor plan of the hotel, the commandos were unable to finetune operation due to lack of it! In movies you see government disaster management cells having the floor plans of important buildings in the city, in computers.. Here such an important hotel which hosts important international events has nothing on hand... what of the rest of the city, which is even more carelessly managed?
  
• A politician entering Nariman House where commando action is still going on. Waving his hand to the crowd..!!
• A (famous) TV journalist, rattling off the fresh casualty figures in a rush, then promptly going back to his brief, on asking a celeb guest if the Taj hotel will ever be the same again...
• Another award-winning female TV journalist holding the arm of a person (whose relation is inside the hotel) for a sound byte: then, following some internal brief, placing her hand on his chest, and firmly pushing him out of the TV frame....
• The crowds milling outside the Nariman House -- and the military trucks having no space to maneouver...
  
• Colaba's streets and its underbelly -- drug dealers/prostitutes operating openly... Petty crime creates a porousness that is clearly a security threat that has not been scrutinised with care. Why, one wonders...
  
• It is not just long coasts or shorelines that make our borders porous. Corruption is also a form of porousness ....
• The other thing that opens our flanks is our own chalta hai attitude..

I chose to live in this city because it has the best heart in the whole world... So since it was the sweetest thing I had known -- person or place -- I could tolerate its filth, its spittoon roads, its traffic jams, its commuters' crush ...
I love it, as if it were a person... And today, my heart weeps ....