Cannot digest…

The events of last two days in Bombay are the ones that evoke disbelief, disgust, shock, anger, irritation, shame and irony. It has prompted questions on who is responsible and accountable. Revenge plays on mind. Yet restraint is the need of the hour.

There will be stories concocted on the planning and brains behind this attack. The motives will be analyzed. The response will be questioned. The retaliation and fight back will be criticized. Political mileage will be sought. Diplomacy will be tested and stretched. Heroes will be hailed. A lot more would be mourned and forgotten.

I was shut inside house due to incessant rains in Chennai. Was hooked on to work from home and I had the TV on all day. It was like watching a full scale action movie albeit in real time. The vicarious entertainment it provided was sickening in when you think about the terror that it has afflicted.

Some things are certain. No more inaction by hiding behind the hyped Mumbaiyya Spirit of returning back to work after a day of horror. There is a need for a clear home land security organization, like the Army. The PM has for the first time come out with a stronger response, which is welcome.

If there are no specific, tangible and visible measures taken, then, one more such attack and people will riot, which again might be one of the objectives of such terror acts.

The efforts of the NSG, even though they are only doing what they are trained for, and the armed forces should be lauded. The challenges of mounting a counter terrorist operation in these conditions are beyond the normal realms. The Taj staff has been reported to be calm, collected and still helpful to the guests amidst chaos, which is poignantly heartening.

Beyond all this analysis of what had happened, why, how, when and where, the whole situation, it is the fact that a bunch of young minds can be trained to believe in these acts of terror as means of proving a point or instruments of getting to an objective that is nauseating. It makes acts of suicide bombing, or flying into an high rise etc, which are point in time acts, elementary in their conception and execution. Here the intent and the long drawn execution are an elaborate exhibition of demented minds.

But for the first time, the weapons and the suicidal conditioning have failed to cloak the cowardice on display.

All said, what had happened is difficult to digest.