Time to Talk: Mumbai...

24 hours post the 13/7 blasts: I sit at my computer 7900 miles from my hometown, Mumbai and watch the live updates on the grief and destruction caused in my city. What can I do from here? Not much. What could I have done if I were in Mumbai right now? Like most Mumbaikars, not much.

I am outraged when I see political parties attack each other under the shadow of such inhumane actions, using the "failure of the system", "failure of appropriate policies", "intelligence failure" and more to bring the other party down. Answer me this. Does it matter to the family of the person whose body was found with a severed limb or head, which party says the right thing in the aftermath? NO! Does it matter that some people are proud that the police and ambulence arrived a few minutes earlier than they did on 26/11? NO! Oh Look! The Prime minister is visiting the wounded. Great! He should. Oh look! The uniformed are performing their duties better this time. Good. They should have done so earlier too.

Mumbai is outraged and so am I. Why are we not learning from our mistakes? Are we really that stupid or does the death of 17 with 133 injured seem like a number that isn't too big in a country of a billion? 150 families will never be the same, not to mention the people who knew these people closely, worked with them, saw them die. Innocent lives have been lost. Clerks, shop-owners and middle class workers who have nothing to do with power or communal disharmony. The people they have left behind will never be the same. Most people turn apathetic because they have not been directly involved. But we must not forget that

Just because it hasn't happened to us or someone we know closely, we cannot justify not caring. The next time it could be you or me or someone we love.

Let there not be a next time! Let us work towards that goal.

Multiple people on Facebook quoted a dialogue from the movie "A Wednesday": "We are resilient by force, not by choice". Mumbaikars all over who were patted on their backs for going to work 12 hours after the attack, were not amused. They had to, even if they didn't want to. They must feed their families.

People are spreading rumors. Blaming Pakistan. Calling it a celebration of Kasab's birthday. Let us take a breath and be a little intelligent about it. It wasn't even Kasab's birthday. Someone altered the Wikipedia article and changed it from 13/09 to 13/07.

We need to use all the resources we have to find the culprits. Learn from our mistakes. What could we have done better? How do we prevent such a horrific event in the future?

We need to take action! As a people. As a government. Action must include better training for our disaster management, for our police, for our forensic teams. Why are our blast sites accessible to common junta? We are a chaotic nation. True! Bringing order and organization is a huge task, but it is not impossible. Let us start with making realistic policies and making sure we implement them, and not spend another 10 years drafting the paperwork. Metal detectors at C.S.T still do not work. One can see people walk around them all the time. What use is it to have these and spend our tax money when they do not have a purpose? If we spend money on giving our policemen fancy firearms to carry, let us also spend some effort in making sure the training they receive is up-to-date to match the equipment. Let us update our instruction manuals and data on which policies are made. Let us not over-work the force we have. Let us have a strong disaster management in place. Let us make sure that the police seal areas like crime sites securely and no one can access these without permission or until they have been swept for evidence. Time and again, it has been the common man who comes to the rescue and take victims to hospitals immediately after the incident, be it an accident or a shooting. That is because there is no trust that those responsible will show up on time. That trust can only be built by example.

Mumbai, I salute you. But tolerance has a limit. As an Indian, I cannot sit quietly and see my people suffer. No longer is this just about a city. It is about the nation. We said a lot of things after 26/11. Let there not be a time when we say "but we said this after 13/07 too". We are a very passive and tolerant population. It is time we show the world that we will not put our second cheek forward when slapped on the first. Let us start by stopping spending 100s of crores on keeping terror convicts in jail and feeding them. Does it really take this long to prove their crime and then punish them for it? Let us make a statement!

- An outraged Indian