The Blogger Bites

Agreed, at various levels, it is unfair, ironical too. For the bitter truth is that life8217;s cheap, and so sometimes, for change to take precedence over everything, it takes an incident of this magnitude to send tremors of terror right to the top.

8216;We now feel what a section of the city8217;s lower-middle class felt on July 11, 2006 when their security was threatened. Affluent members of society now prance around panels claiming Bombay is no longer safe. This city isn8217;t safe now, nor was it safe two years ago,8217; blogs Karan Johar. And he8217;s not alone

Agreed, at various levels, it is unfair, ironical too. For the bitter truth is that life8217;s cheap, and so sometimes, for change to take precedence over everything, it takes an incident of this magnitude to send tremors of terror right to the top. The war on Mumbai shot only one message, loud and clear 8211; nothing and nowhere is safe. It has exposed, yet again, the gaping holes in our system, the lack of will, political primarily, to safeguard the borders and citizens of this country. As the mediums of media write, talk, debate and discuss voraciously, we log on and catch the active bollywood blogger, pained and pent up over this invasion. More than that, on the fact that it took an attack on the elite to shake the ground beneath us.

8220;The hypocrisy unnerves me8230;we can8217;t fix anything on the outside until we fix our equations on the inside. The universe has given us a body of relationships that we have a right to live up to 8211; and we have no business expending our energies on vocalizing disdain towards the system or typing out petitions for change until we create peace in our individual worlds. Only then can we have peace on the streets. Only then can we truly be fit to fight. In our every day lives where maybe we went to Tiffin for lunch or did some window-shopping at the Taj, we now feel unsafe in our cars with tinted windows and our buildings with multiple watchmen. We now feel what a section of the city8217;s lower-middle class felt on July 11, 2006 when their security was threatened. Affluent members of society now prance around panels claiming Bombay is no longer safe. This city isn8217;t safe now, nor was it safe 2 years ago,8221; blogs a visibly disturbed Karan Johar on mynameiskaran.com. My friend Niranajan, he adds, put across with remarkable simplicity that, 8220;The only people who did anything to mention over the past three days were the NSG who quietly came in, stoically risked their lives, killed our enemies, walked out onto the debris filled streets, boarded red best buses and went home.8221;

Gul Panag too looks on the other side of the mirror and pens on gulpanag.net, 8220;I don8217;t know how my comments will be taken by you but this had to happen and it8217;s not a complete surprise. Me and you only take notice of terror when it enters the malls or the hotels. But if the same thing happens in the slums we are okay with it. This is a much larger issue than it looks. Muslims who kill people are terrorists but Bajrang Dal/RSS activists who burn Christian homes, rape nuns are 8220;angry misguided youth8221;?8221;

The war is not at our borders any more, one of the most active bloggers, director Shekhar Kapur has been questioning the very tenets of democracy on shekharkapur.com. Will Mumbai get back to normalcy? 8220;Maybe not this time. For this time the very bastions of the elite were attacked. The Taj and the Oberoi Hotels. Where some of the rich and powerful were caught in the crossfire. Even a delegation from the EU parliament. It is a great pity that it takes an attack on our our elitist bastions for us to to be motivated to take stands. For all the farmers that committed suicide, for all the bomb blasts in not so upmarket areas, for all the horrendous crimes perpetuated against the people in the rural areas have never created so much furor as this attack in Mumbai has. Maybe this time the political bosses of India will accept that a cancer of communal disharmony and terrorism is destroying the fabric of our society and we stand at the brink of the end of a society and civilization that the fathers of our Constitution dreamed of. Destroyed by the politics and politicians of our nation.8221;

Yes, he writes, the people of Mumbai will once again show courage. 8220;As they have done before through floods and bombs and terrorist attacks. I just hope that the Hindu fundamentalist forces do not come out in the streets, provoked as they usually are by political powers. That is exactly what the terrorists want 8211; a disruption of our society and fighting, killing and carnage on our streets.8221; For Shekhar, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh8217;s statement carries no weight. 8220;For the first time I actually believed that Mr Manmohan Singh is a great economist and completely non corrupt, but is an ineffective leader, or is not allowed to lead8230;the US has found Obama, will India find a leader that is strong and determined?8221; It is time that we the people of India recognize that that the government is not our ruler, but our servant, roars Kapur, adding how 8220;we can8217;t just write of everything as fundamentalism. We need to understand why it happens, and strike at the root cause. What goes on in the mind of a 19-year-old when he decides to kill innocent people indiscriminately.8221; Technology has given the people of India a powerful voice. 8220;It is the voice of the new media. Through the blogosphere. Through twitter. Through sms8230;making our voices loud and clear and our democracy a true democracy,8221; says Kapur. Terrorists have no religion, wrote Aamir Khan. 8220;We desperately need young, dynamic, honest, intelligent and upright leaders, who actually care for the country.8221; All those for a New Order, blog in please.