Several of you have sent in (thanks, Art Vandalay) Suketu Mehta’s op-ed piece “What They Hate About Mumbai“, so it’s no surprise that it is currently the second-most emailed article from the New York Times. In an essay which reminds me of everything I read about our own maximum city seven years ago, Mehta outlines all the ways Mumbai shines, while exhorting us to not be deterred by tragedy.
Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.
Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. Bollywood movies are the most popular form of entertainment across the subcontinent. Through them, every Pakistani and Bangladeshi is familiar with the wedding-cake architecture of the Taj and the arc of the Gateway of India, symbols of the city that gives the industry its name. It is no wonder that one of the first things the Taliban did upon entering Kabul was to shut down the Bollywood video rental stores. The Taliban also banned, wouldn’t you know it, the keeping of songbirds. [link]
I didn’t know that last bit about the Taliban banning songbirds; there’s something very poignant about such an act. This morning, I randomly surfed through a wiki page about Osama, who once was so annoyed by music at a race track in Sudan, he subsequently stopped attending races.
But back to Bombay, where a seemingly indestructible Big B (who is a blogger, dontcha know) slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow, for the first time, ever.
Mumbai is a “soft target,” the terrorism analysts say. Anybody can walk into the hotels, the hospitals, the train stations, and start spraying with a machine gun. Where are the metal detectors, the random bag checks? In Mumbai, it’s impossible to control the crowd. In other cities, if there’s an explosion, people run away from it. In Mumbai, people run toward it — to help. Greater Mumbai takes in a million new residents a year. This is the problem, say the nativists. The city is just too hospitable. You let them in, and they break your heart. [link]
That bit I bolded made my heart crack, a little. So did this:
In the Bombay I grew up in, your religion was a personal eccentricity, like a hairstyle. In my school, you were denominated by which cricketer or Bollywood star you worshiped, not which prophet. In today’s Mumbai, things have changed. Hindu and Muslim demagogues want the mobs to come out again in the streets, and slaughter one another in the name of God. They want India and Pakistan to go to war. They want Indian Muslims to be expelled. They want India to get out of Kashmir. They want mosques torn down. They want temples bombed. [link]
Mehta outlines one of the reasons why the “Jewish” angle of the story was so compelling:
In 1993, Hindu mobs burned people alive in the streets — for the crime of being Muslim in Mumbai. Now these young Muslim men murdered people in front of their families — for the crime of visiting Mumbai. They attacked the luxury businessmen’s hotels. They attacked the open-air Cafe Leopold, where backpackers of the world refresh themselves with cheap beer out of three-foot-high towers before heading out into India. Their drunken revelry, their shameless flirting, must have offended the righteous believers in the jihad. They attacked the train station everyone calls V.T., the terminus for runaways and dreamers from all across India. And in the attack on the Chabad house, for the first time ever, it became dangerous to be Jewish in India. [link]
The terrorists have “won”…for now:
The terrorists’ message was clear: Stay away from Mumbai or you will get killed. Cricket matches with visiting English and Australian teams have been shelved. Japanese and Western companies have closed their Mumbai offices and prohibited their employees from visiting the city. Tour groups are canceling long-planned trips. [link]
But Mehta believes that we obviously should not let them:
But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.
If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid? [link]
I love that imagery, of selflessly running to help instead of fearfully running away (not that anyone would blame someone who did that). I wonder, are any of you running to Mumbai? From some of your FB status messages and tweets, I know a few of you are quite understandably having second thoughts.
On a different note, while I appreciate his writing, I hope it is clear that I am not siding with Mehta (or against him); I’ve never been to this beautiful city, so I was hoping you would each give me your take on his op-ed, in the comments below.
PSU, The comparison to your point is the “rent control apartments” of Upper East Side. (I am not sure if there are really rent control apartments in Upper East Side, a real New yorker can shed some light). Point is that not everyone would be ‘old money’ in an entire area such as South Bombay or Upper East Side.
Only ‘old money’ and very rich can afford to live in South Bombay
That is really not true. My aunt lives in a little old (built in the ’20’s) house in the middle of the city and according the recent real estate appraisal (as early as this Sept), her house or rather the land it is built on, is worth over $10 million! Thats just what the developer is willing to pay to get the property to build another effing mall or luxury hotel.
South Bombay was the playground for the rich of the past. My friend lived in a huge apartment in the Colaba area (5 mins from the Taj) and she wouldn’t leave the house unescorted at night ‘cos of loads of prostitution and drug dealing taking place after 7pm.
Uhhh–while I’m no counter-terrorism expert, and basically just want to see some LeT “officials,”/ISI double-gamers wind up dead, whether killed by the Pakistani gov’t, India, and/or the US (b/c I’m a retaliatority kind of a guy), isn’t veering off into the class-structure of the terror-victims a bit, uhhh–off-topic?
Well, $10 million in India might qualify as old money !!!
How big is greater Mumbai? Wont they run out of space at this rate?
In India, I guess 10 million will take you far. But with expensive real estate in Bombay, it would get her an apartment maybe in Bandra and some change. The point of my post was, the middle of the city is more suburb-y and not really downtown, South Bombay (if you get my drift). Plus the rest of the city is also upping the ante in terms of living expenses and costs.
Rob, The class structure is a part any Bombay story. Especially of the one that took place last week. You know,there is a distinct possibility that the events will have no effect on the politics of the general population (unless the politicains stir it up) simply because it did not happen to them. In fact there was definitely a voyeuristic aspect to the whole tamasha. I do not blame them. The terorists , as frivolous as it may seem, used appearance to worm their way around Colaba. Chikna – i’m sure you’ve read that word to describe them. The poor fishermen dared not question men who were dressed better than them. Similarly, the so called resilience of Bombay, may simply have nothing to do with south bombay – its simply a statment of fact. The the other 95% just had to get to work. Or they would lose.
Interesting that they have rent control in mumbai and yet 10 million of it’s residents are homeless and lack access to basic things like sewage and clean, running water.
Why don’t they just get rid of the rent control and allow investors to build, build, build (more supply, reduces demand, which reduces the price).
Neale, Interesting points–esp. about the fishermen–thanks!
This is just my opinion and I may be wrong. I think the rent control laws in Bombay are really old (not sure if they have been updated now), created in the 1900’s. And the rent control laws actually favor the renter and not the landlords. Something like, if you have rented in a place for a certain time, you can actually own the place or buy the place from the landlord. So its not really a good win-win for the landlord and he takes revenge by not helping with any of the maintenance costs. Thats why a lot of the buildings ,esp the old ones are crumbling and the monsoons brings a flurry of old tottering buildings that do collapse. I was looking at real estate prices in the city now, and even though I live in the US, my place here is worth much less than most apartments in Bombay. I know my husband and I could not afford to move back and JUST buy a house there! Its a lot cheaper to live in a cardboard shanty with stolen electricity and water. I know the Shiv Sena tried to get some slum people to move to the highrises they built specifically for them and the people rented them out and moved back to the slums. Of course, this does not speak for all of the people living in the slums.
35 · Meenakshi said
Ah ha. Thanks everyone for clarifying…looks like a few people have read the book!
Some excellent points made by Neale and Pingpong about Mumbai.But Suketu Mehta’s piece did not resonate with me much.
I lived as a paying guest in Colaba (Cooperage Road) for 3 years (1999-2002) and since then, spend close to a month every year in South Mumbai.And I used to work in Air India building (next to Oberoi). Cafe Leopold, Mondy’s, The Taj and those bylanes – these are part of the everyday life for South Mumbaikars.Somehow, thinking of them as mere tourist spots takes away the intimacy one feels with those places.
About people rushing to help – thousands of people rush in but most of them out of curiosity. However, the Marathi Manoos, for all the politicking around them, are a very kind and helpful lot. [Ok, they are also a bit conservative especially if they see public displays of affection (between Indians).]As some one said earlier, if there is a holiday declared, and nothing else to do at home but watch TV, most people would step out of their tiny apartments, and go to ‘town’.My friend told me that on Friday and Saturday evening, lot of people took photos of themselves with the burning Taj in the background.I don’t know if this is a very Indian thing or Mumbaiya thing, but I feel I can understand these people.Its Ok to do it, I think.
Some people relocate from Mumbai to Bangalore/Pune/Hyderabad after they settle in a good career (born-brought-up-and-fed-up with Mumbai).But their parents won’t move, and some of them get back to Mumbai after a few years 🙂
And the majority stay put in Mumbai.It is a matter of getting used to the city and its ‘fever and fret’.After living in Mumbai for only 3 years, I got transformed so much that I found living in Indianapolis, IN, almost like moving to a village.I had to visit Chicago every month to get my periodic fix of Mumbaiya-style life.
During the 80’s and 90’s, when IT had not yet happened to Indian youth, the biggest dream of India’s (non engg and medical) graduates used to be a secure Govt job. And IAS/IPS used to be the Mt.Everest.But in Mumbai, the Civil Services never held any attraction for the youth.The private always promised and delivered more in Mumbai.
In 1999, when I went to Mumbai from Hyderabad, I did not know that only (South) Mumbai, of all the cities in India, ensured a near uninterrupted power supply throughout the year.I love the ‘getting things done’ attitude of the people.It is the one thing that ensures their survival and holds out the hope for future growth.
Will end with an example – I was at my friend’s in Andheri, and we dialled a local liquor shop guy to see if he could home deliver some whisky.He said yes, and gave the phone to his ‘boy’.The boy asked us the directions, and suggested if we would want some soda, snacks etc.When I said ‘but you don’t sell these things, na?”, he replied that he could stop by an eatery on the way and get those things for us.We were quite happy to order, and gave him a good tip when he delivered all the goodies 20 minutes later. In most cities in India (or the US), if you are not a regular customer, it will be a miracle if you can get liquor door delivered. But in Mumbai, any thing can get door delivered.All you need to do is to be ready with the money when he rings the bell.
This to me is the spirit of mumbai – ‘chalo lets make some moolah’ spirit.But if you are not very rich, no point living there.Just visit now and then and immerse yourself in the city where any thing is possible.
video of the cameraman who shot the picture of the terrorists at the chevaji station.
It’s unbelievable how close to the water the taj hotel is and there is virtually no security barrier between the hotel and the waterfront. Also, the cameraman says the police at the station did not fire back.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=m&q=mumbai&sa=N&tab=bv#hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=m&q=mumbai&sa=N&tab=bv&st=day&start=40
Ok..sorry to hog the forum, but want to post a couple of thoughts on the attacks:
1.The statements from PM and Foreign Minister about Pakistani connection was expected.They have to say that (irrespective of what and how much evidence they have now), because that is the best way to rally the country together.If they highlight or admit that local jihadi groups played a vital role, it could have led to riots already. The common man in India is very angry.And having spoken to a couple of Muslim friends, I know some of them are relieved that Pakistan is to be blamed completely and not local Muslims.
2.However, this could not have been done without assistance from local modules, and especially the underworld.And though this is not the right time to criticize the police, it is obvious they have become too politicised in their functioning, and as a result, may have taken their eyes and ears off the underworld.
I think this is quite normal, as you also mention. There were such throngs of people at the World Trade Centre site that within a few months the City ended up building viewing platforms and walkways to accommodate them. The crowds did not dwindle over the years because of the constant flow of tourists in NY and there were even all kinds of souvenier hawkers and what not all over the place.
50 · InternsR4Whitehouse said
Bitter much?
66, I think that was a joke.
I am disgusted by the media’s coverage of not only the attacks, but the ‘context’ that they put them in. It all really smacks of complete ignorance of the geopolitics of the subcontinent.
I also think it’s hilarious that leftist apologists for terror are now glad to blame Pakistan (never mind all the evidence that was apparent even before) if only because it’ll stop communal riots among Indian Muslims and Hindus. I really think that people are exaggerating the propensity for communal violence… I have not seen any indications that it has been a real threat. I hope that Mumbaikars will make me proud and keep it that way and not stoop to the terrorists’ level, and I think Suketu Mehta is right on that level. Of course, we can only hope that the Indian government actually retaliates at the people responsible for this.
26 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Yep! Right on! But to be fair the article was written for NY Times. He had to start that paragraph with (almost) an apology. That makes him look thoughtful. Moreover it illustrates straight forward causality – makes the article easy to read. Gora/ABD reader would go “Hmmmmm… so that is why”
21 · DesiInNJ said
Stephen Cohen uttered something like “cold start” or “cold assault” that Indians have been considering and even preparing for. He was on Zakaria’s GPS 🙂 today.
This Republican administration has been very supportive of India; I am not expecting that new Democratic administration is going to be as supportive. Obama has already uttered the ‘K’ word.
Democrats have a pretty bookish and intellectual approach to India-Pak relationship. For Democrats ‘war on terror’ and ‘India-Pak relations’ are mutually exclusive. Democratic pundits say US should do ‘what ever it takes’ so that India and Pakistan can resolve the Kashmir issue , they believe resolving Kashmir would help Pakistan to focus on fighting the war on terror. So for Democrats and for many Americans the scope of the ‘war on terror’ is killing Al Qauida militants and Iraqi insurgents. Rest of the jehadis groups are just regional nuisance. I think Indians are going to get shafted by this incoming administration and this inept Indian government deserves that.
I must say that I am very impressed with the way Pakistanis have played this crisis so far, they have said the right things yet they have not given up anything. It is so simple but yet brilliant. Indians by contrast have come out looking like abject fools. Maharashtra State Home minister(R R Patil) called these attacks as a minor incidence in a big city.
Don’t be too quick to get annoyed by the “salon-like” nature of discussion at SM–there is no representation that they have anything to do with (and, insofar as I know, no actual connection with) where the bodies are going do start showing up in Pakistan. And by bodies, I mean only the bad guys, not the average Pakistani.
67 · aaro said
No, but it was off-topic, unproductive, disrespectful and disruptive. San Francisco hasn’t had a meetup in quite a while. If you have an issue with our hosting one there, this is not the place to vent. Deleted.
I see malice in allowing comment 67.
That was a gun under his blanket? And here I thought he was just happy to see me.
Ooh, the Big B is übermacho! Even Luca Brasi slept only with the fishes.
I said this earlier, but it bears repeating.
22 · A N N A said
Many deleted comments told us that we needed to start acting like an INDIAN blog, that if we didn’t type “Bharat Mata ki Jai” we were agents of Pakistan and that for an INDIAN blog, we should be ashamed of ourselves for _________.
We could never function like an Indian newspaper, or a blog staffed by people who were raised in India and know it intimately. We have only tried to be exactly what we are: a group of people who were born and raised here by immigrants, who see parts of ourselves in the diaspora.
I hope we can get back on-topic, now. I haven’t seen my family in over a year, I shouldn’t ignore them while I’m here. While a lot of you don’t have blogs and cannot relate to running SM, almost all of you have mothers– surely you can relate to that.
riots in india do not typically stem as responses to terrorist actions from pakistan.
i was talking about the possibility of riots—a friend pointed out that riots have happened for godra (unclear origin, state complicity), for babri masjid (dispute), but we could come up with no examples that were a response for any terrorist action from pakistan, or even a terrorist attack—not the train blasts, not the parliament, not jaipur, not bangalore, none of the attacks. this is a factual question, not to be interpreted in any which way—are we missing something?
Good point there.
Riots are almost always instigated due to political reasons, allowed to spread because the Police are put under pressure not to act decisively, and calm down after the political ends are met.
A data point: Hindu-Muslim riots used to be quite regular in Hyderabad (India) till 1982.Between 1982-1989, a regional party was in power instead of the Congress.No riots in Hyderabad between 1982-1989.Congress back in power in 1989, adn we had riots in 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994.
Another data point which is a little controversial (but is a fact): Riots have always occurred in areas where Muslims are 25% or above of the population of the city. There have been no record of riots in any districts in India where Muslims were less than 20%.
And sorry, I don’t think ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits or Anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat come under riots.These were occassions where one side was overwhelmingly superior, aided by the State and/or external forces.
Mumbai riots and blasts fall into a different category altogether because of the added element of the underworld.
I just wanted to make a comment on the ‘spirit’ of Mumbai. I am currently in India on business and basically the fact that people are going back to work and life continues says less about spirit and more about need. People need to go to work and make money and support their families. Are they scared of course they are, are they angry with the lack of safety provided them, absolutely, but they can’t afford to sit at home. They need their jobs. Not to say that there is not ‘spirit’. I think there are some heroic stories of sacrifices made by people, one hotel employee shielding guests and taking bullets for them, the hotel manager working to get guests out all the while knowing that his wife and two children lay charred inside the hotel, the fire-fighters who put themselves in harms way because they had to quell fires but only had two bullet proof vests. The myriad of other such stories show the spirit of Mumbai. But to say people are moving on, we can over come and all of that, glosses over the fear, anger and angst that exists.
People you have to watch this video in Urdu/Hindi from a major Pakistani cable TV program where in an analyst is going on about how just like 9/11 was orchestrated by Americans and Israelis, this one in Mumbai was orchestrated by ‘ Hindu Zionists ‘. The anchor agrees all the while saying ‘ sahi hai ‘ meaning that’s right. The theory is that just like US used a fake 9/11 to attack Muslim lands, India will use this fake attack to go into Pakistan. There’s a lot of taunting of the victims and assertions that the attackers were actually Hindus. This will be believed as usual by a lot of people in the Muslim world.
This isn’t a fringe program. It’s a very popular TV hosted by Qudsia Qadri and the analyst is Zaid Hamid. I have sent this item as a tip to SM as well.
The tragedy in Mumbai should be unequivocally condemned by all people around the world. No one, except terrorists and their followers will approve of the horrible carnage in Mumbai. Hate filled religious and ethnic extremism are dangerous precursors of more violence to come. Resorting to terrorist violence against citizens to make political statements for causes whether religious or ethnic cannot be condoned or tolerated by any rational person of any religion or race.
Preliminary Indian investigations apparently point towards foreign born terrorists and foreign trained terrorists, possibly trained inside Pakistan. They may or may not be Al-Qaeda linked. They maybe groups seeking independence for Muslim majority Kashmir. These groups perhaps want India and Pakistan to go to war again, playing right into the hands of global jihadists.
It is ironic that India once armed, trained and financed rebel separatist groups who also use terror as part of their deadly arsenal to launch attacks inside one of its closest loyal small allies. It is sad that these forces that India once created, still have large groups of sympathizers in parts of India who continue to provide material aid and abet them; although in fairness, that group is not a religious extremist group but one based on separatism just like the groups wanting Kashmir to secede from India.
Indians cannot cry foul against Jihadi extremists who harm their interests, while encouraging other groups within their boundaries to destabilise other nations in the region. In repeated conversations with Indians, one can hear them being extremely critical of alleged Pakistani based extremists attacking India, but they all appear to suffer from a severe case of amnesia, forgetting that India under the Indira and Rajiv Gandhi administration encouraged terror attacks inside Sri Lanka.
Terrorism has to be fought on two fronts; eliminating terrorists from the field by physically removing them and by implementing reasonable political, economic and social policies to address the serious underlying issues that cause terrorist groups to foster and breed inside diverse and sometimes fractious civilized societies, delineated by linguistic and religious identities/boundaries.
Politicians who fail to see reality will have to deal with terrorism for a long time.
That’s right.. For Indian audience, this is a tit for tat due to Gujarat riots, But if you calculate the number of dead Hindus versus dead Muslims, the score was made even with the last Delhi blast, I think..
This may be slightly off topic, but inasmuch as I am trying to invoke the spirit of a city it isn’t. I read the other day about adman Suhel Seth lambasting Delhi for being not a hundredth of Bombay in spirit, where people would “run toward” not away, and I was just shocked. I thought it was incredibly inappropriate… granted I am a Delhiite and have a chip on my shoulder for this indisciplined, chaotic city, but how is it that even in the throes of your darkest anguish you could consider venting against your own in this ugly manner? I don’t know what I would do in such a situation. I cannot speak for myself and yet some people find it easy to speak for an entire city.
About Mehta’s own writing this essay and the book – he is a powerful writer. He impacts – however I cannot help but have a little distaste for some of the things he writes, his fascination for the underworld, some of his odd pussyfooting around Thackeray…
Mehta seems to be a bit over the top, particularly when he says things like
“And in the attack on the Chabad house, for the first time ever, it became dangerous to be Jewish in India”
and
“Hindu and Muslim demagogues want the mobs to come out again in the streets, and slaughter one another in the name of God”
But hey, he gets his checks from NY Times, and has to please the constituency.
In other news today, a pit bull attacked a passer by in the town of Islip in Long Island 🙂
Felt so sad reading this.
78 · YouWon’t BelieveThisLink said
As prominent Bollywood intellectual Mahesh Bhatt said on the eve of the blasts “This is the consequence of India’s support to the USA’s war on terror” One can’t agree more with his assessment. We must disinvest from the GWOT completely and sewer all ties with Israel. India must simultaneously speed up CBMs with its neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh. Afzal must be freed and Malegaon accused must be hunted down and hanged. I am sure India will grow in stature if it does the above, or as Mahesh Bhatt said on TV “Oh this is just the beginning”
What happened to your statement on the other thread that murder of anyone is wrong under any circumstances? Who are you??
Amitabh, I’m 100% sure that kayastha_lady is a troll who makes over-the-top statements in order to parody ‘the other side.’
36 · DTK said
DTK, I must agree with you there. The hysterical media coverage to incidents like these raises the social cost of terrorism. Though the number of casualties are inordinately high for a terrorist strike, one can argue (to put in perspective) that far more people die in Road accidents or of heart disease. India must learn from America’s response to 9/11 and how the public fear manufactured by the media gave Dubya the mandate to go into Iraq. Analogous to the never-to-be-found WMDs, the Indian government is now accusing Pakistan of harbouring Dawood. I trust the good sense of the Indian people to not make any hasty decisions in this matter. Also proof has emerged that seven of the terrorists were British nationals and not Pakistan. So will India go to war with Britain then or will it address the the indignities faced by religious and linguistic minorities that feeds the calculus of terrrorism.
Sorry, it just became a little more harder to get an apartment, or a decent job, in Mumbai if you are Muslim. With every attack, the terrorists dig a bigger hole for ordinary Muslims. Their hope is that the ordinary Muslim will start a revolution as the hole gets bigger and deeper. But the sad fact of human nature is that when your hole gets bigger, you adapt to it, because adapting is a lot easier than revolution. Terrorists, as you would expect, don’t understand thermodynamics.
To put things in perspective, it is also difficult for policemen to get apartments in Mumbai, and elsewhere. People don’t trust them to vacate, and they don’t want to get into the trouble of trying to evict them.
Could you explain further?… what’s wrong with policemen?
As prominent Bollywood intellectual Mahesh Bhatt said … Is this a standard moniker for Mahesh Bhatt? I was laughing as I read this and am now certain that k_l is a troll.
Nothing wrong with most of them, just as there is nothing wrong with most Muslims. Landlords are very conservative people, they try to stay as far away from trouble as possible. There are some policemen who are trouble (just like some Muslims), but it is difficult to know beforehand who is trouble and who is not. Landlords don’t want to bother with vetting people for trouble, especially when there is no shortage of renters. If the renting person is trouble, the landlord stands to lose a lot of money, sometimes even the apartment. So if you are a policeman or a Muslim, chances are you will find it difficult to rent an apartment. Some landlords also don’t rent to big companies, based on the same logic.
Experts are making the point that it is doubtful that any official governmental office or org in Pakistan had anything to do with this. Pakistan suffers from more terrorist attacks a year than India does and it would not make sense for the Pakistani government to divert it’s energy into creating terror in India when it has more than it’s own hands full dealing with internal terrorism. Wouldn’t it be great if USA, INDIA and PAKISTAN united in the “war on terrorism”, or the “war on war”? Like Deepak Chopra (MPBUH) said, it’s an oxymoron.
Sat Nam.
Piyush Grover, who are these ‘experts’ that you’re referring to?
And the notion that the Pakistani military ‘has its hands full’ as a reason why members of it may not be complicit in these attacks is ridiculous. It’s pretty much confirmed now that the Pakistani government/military apparatus is responsible for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. These people consider India an enemy, and have been diverting resources that they’re supposed to be using to fight militants in the NWFP, which the military has no control over, to cause havoc in India. Also, the terrorists in this attack used the same grenades that the Pakistani army uses.
The notion of Pakistan being an ally in India’s ‘war’ (We all know that Congress isn’t going to do shit in response) against terrorism is a huge joke. I hope the Indian government doesn’t give in to this ridiculous idea, b/c even if the higher-ups in Pakistani intelligence have good intentions, information will probably leak and put India at even higher risk.
I don’t understand why people don’t just look at the evidence instead of making excuses for Pakistan. But the fact that you quoted Deepak Chopra tells me that your opinion is pretty much worthless.
Just because Deepak is a corny, new-age philosopher does not mean all of his opinions are worthless. He makes some good points. What do people here have against him anyway?
Off the top of my head: intelligent design advocate, obscurantist, quantum physics misunderstander, science misquoter, mystic mumbo-jumbo salesman, and all-round charlatan who deserves to be beaten on the streets of Kolkata by a Bengali intellectual for being an embarrassment to humanity.
94 · Piyush Grover said
He’s a PC.
He’s a “mind-body-soul” guy. Granted, not many desis are into the whole “new age” thing, but just because he may spout mumbo jumbo ayurvedic-yoga-mystic stuff does not mean his opinions about conflict in the world are 100% off. In fact, I agreed with everything I heard him say on TV regarding the Mumbai Massacre. He’s asking the leaders of the world to probe into what may be causing young men to take to terrorism. He’s asking people to keep a cool head and not retaliate against their Muslim neighbors who having nothing to do with it. He’s asking USA to rethink her foreign policy. I mean, what did he say that was “off”???
Who, subsequently, should be brushed with fine tar and covered with chicken feathers and garlanded with chappals, for mistaking herself for an “intellectual” just by ingesting watery coffee and spouting even more watery European ideas. And then chased across the Gangetic plain for promoting a simplistic resource-allocation model proposed by two eighteenth century bearded weirdos as “philosophy”, and then blowing up their silly idea like a giant pink bubble gum across everything known to man, making the biggest unholy mess in the history of the planet.
I prefer Deepak Chopra any day. Maybe even Larry King and Wolf Blitzer.
People have mentioned Sara Sidner as an example of the rowdy Bombay crowd.
But what about the fact that maybe they were just angry at the media for providing live feeds with no thought to the consequences in the first hours of the attacks? She at one time mentioned that the crowd had been also yelling/hassling the Indian media as well.
When I first saw it, it seemed fairly obvious to me that the guy was really upset at something and was trying to get across a point–a point he couldn’t clearly state. He even asked the other guy to try to tell her what he is trying to say. And it should also be noted that many were also trying not to crowd into Sidner. Watch the video, the guy yelling into the camera had his hands raised to try to back up people. Some of the people in the crowd had their hands raised as well.
But even if that crowd was big, she also mentioned that they had been backed up. Meaning they were spread in a wider area before the security forces backed them up, forcing them to be in crowded together in a dense space. (They could’ve left, true. But they were watching.)
It should also be noted that this happened pretty early. And the live channels had already just been blamed for causing some cops their lives by giving information to the terrorists. And as I mentioned before, Sidner herself said they had been hassling the Indian media first and made their way over to her.
So it’s interesting that only CNN decided to play the footage of the crowd bothering their respective reporter and camera man. Perhaps they spoke in Hindi to the other Indian media outlets and they knew why they were angry. Where as, CNN has no clue.
But still, it’s pretty tacky of CNN to keep playing it over and over again–especially since their coverage overall sucked. And then, to top it all off. If you watch the video–at first they were just crowded around her. It wasn’t till she used the idiotic choice of word–“celebrating”–that all of a sudden they started yelling at her, etc.
I don’t know what they were doing, but why the hell would she say celebrating.
de-lurker, good points. without detracting from ms. sidner’s capabilities, i felt cnn really overplayed the whole incident and then, later, when some explosions went off in the background while she was on-air, they made the most of it, replaying it ad nauseum to prove her “bravery.” i’m not questioning her bravery, but there’s no need to constantly make yourself or your network the center of attention or keep patting yourselves on the back for the great job you are doing. as reporters in a dangerous situation, that is your job and she was still relatively quite safe. standing there, knowing explosions were going on, and then saying it was odd that the security forces let them get that close is a bit much. you don’t have to be that close if you don’t want to be.
but then again, this is the same network (actually all the networks) that keep saying they have the best political team in television and keep congratulating one another every two seconds on air, saying “heckuva job” every time they report even the Dow Jones average or something. cnn-ibn is no better at patting themselves on the back for the most miniscule bit of effort over something.