Mumbai Blasts - Again

Why Mumbai? And why so often? Who hates us that much? And WHY?

Are we an easy target? Is that because we are peaceful and don't interfere with others? Is someone trying to get cash for another major hate filled project? After all one of the three simultaneous blasts was in the gold market - Zaveri Bazaar.

And another thought that comes to mind - Will we ever come to know answers to any of the above? Or not? Will we ever know the truth?

On a personal level, everyone must hope family living in Mumbai is okay. 21 lives gone for no fault of their own. What a needless loss. Whose God allows such a crime? Some terrorists say they don't care if they die - life is expendable. Then why do they ensure their families are well looked after when they are gone? Why do the ones who preach them that life is expendable, reassure them thus? Is their family the exception to that concocted-for-convenience belief? Why don't they let their family join them in heaven? Why ensure their well being on earth? I think suicide bombers are as trapped by their circumstances (mostly poverty) as we are by the desire of those who want (and wish for) a different world order where they are in power - the ones who train and enlist these bombers.

Before this becomes a rant, I know it isn't suicide bombers this time. This time the bombs were planted. Three in all. Simultaneous explosions as in the 1993 Mumbai blasts when there were eleven. As usual, the public rallied around to help the injured. Handcarts, trucks, motorcycles, whatever was at hand was used to transport the injured to hospitals.

Is there anything the public can do before such an event? Some say it was a tiffin box lying about that concealed the bomb; others say it was in a car. Mumbai is chaotic. Too easy to leave something somewhere with no one paying attention. Terrorists love chaos and thrive in it.

Perhaps only if we wring order from chaos will we be able to see things clearer. What can we do to prevent packages from being left about?  Be trained through television to be more vigilant? Perhaps drop written complaints or suspicions into boxes? A direct phone line? I think it all sounds like a logistical nightmare with millions of real or imagined suspicions and sightings daily.

What should we do about vendors or the homeless - arriving into Mumbai in their droves everyday because there is no infrastructure in their towns and villages - clogging our footpaths. Do we turn them away? Mumbai never has. We feel helpless. Perhaps the government should stop collecting tax payer money for their individual Swiss accounts and start on infrastructure for our towns and villages.

Somethimes I wonder if Swiss accounts were stopped, would poverty be wiped out? But that is another thought for another day.

How else can we make our beautiful, coastal city less chaotic? How else do we make it difficult for terrorists to stop hurting us? Hope, for starters, the ones who set off these bombs are caught and severely punished. Hope their leaders are exposed and swiftly brought to justice. Hope we can do something to ensure there are no more bombs in Mumbai. Hope we know what that "something" is.


People are not buying into platitudes from ministers who see an international photo opportunity and mouth platitudes about the "Indian spirit". This is what another blogger writes,

So, it has happened yet again and all we get to hear is a confirmation from the Hon Home Minister “yes it was a planned terror attack”. Thank you sir for letting us know. Now what about protecting us? The title of this blog post - Bombed!!! Doomed!!! And Living On..... The link: http://books-life-n-more.blogspot.com/2011/07/bombed-doomed-yet-we-are-still-living.html

India Today's link to today's (yesterday's) blasts: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/mumbai-blast-three-blasts-in-mumbai/1/144704.html



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