26/11

10 terrorists, 7 locations - including 2 landmark hotels and a busy railway station, a 3 day siege, 190 people killed, hundreds more injured and yet the home minister feels its just "a stray incident in this big city". The CM deems it fit to visit the ravaged hotel with his actor son and a film director. An attack which brought the city to its knees.. and yet it wasn't the first one even if it was the most horrifying one. And its aftermath sees the usual finger pointing, a few resignations here and there, grand declarations, a whole lot of chest thumping, studio activists with the ever ready sound byte about the resilience of the city, the spirit of the city.. and an angry, terrified but finally helpless common man.

And then as the wounds heal, life returns to normalcy all is forgotten except probably by those whose wounds run too deep to fully heal. The facade of solidarity now discarded for divisive votebank politics, ambitious anti-terror plans are stalled for a few votes. The parliament stands divided when now more than ever it has to be united.

Every time we think the worst is past us, that the government has finally woken up, there is yet another attack. The serial blasts of 93, Kargil war, the attack on the parliament, blasts ripping through local trains.. the list is long with each attack more audacious than the previous. And yet successive governments choose to sleep over the issue of catastrophic failure of the intelligence and security agencies in all these cases. The heroes of 26/11 will be lauded but were their deaths necessary? How many more incidents should occur before the government can finally wake up to the reality of terror attacks? Before dedicated units are setup to ruthlessly counter the terrorism, their hands not tied by either politics or religion? And till when will the common man continue to be a silent spectator to the entire circus? Maybe he has forgotten that he controls the circus.

Vote sensibly for the right person and the right party. If there is no sensible person standing then choose the "i do not want to vote" option at the polling station (if these votes are in majority then a re-election is held with new candidates) but most importantly VOTE.

PS: Why is Raj Thackeray so silent over the attacks on his beloved city?

The swan song

A nice article from a friend's status msg
Losing my religion

Shot!

U of M flu shot

Afternoon nightmare

Agreed the day till afternoon had gone all wrong but that doesn't mean I should have my pet nightmare back. In new modified circumstances.
Started with me in some unknown jungle with some unknown ppl (except 1). Looked suspiciously like a mix of LOST and SURVIVOR (All that I've seen of it is the ads so wonder how it pooped up in my head). We weren't really lost, we were just actors. And one character lets call her Kate (There is only 1 female character in LOST) was complaining about the different makeup she has to put in 2 different shows she works in - one tanned and one bleached.
The rest of it is hazy till the point where "Kate" wakes up with a blackened face. Which she blames on the strong chemicals in her makeup. That's where the dream turns into a B-grade horror flick. Her skin turns from black to blue, water oozing out of it.. her gums (there is my pet nightmare :P) swell up n turn blue.. the last thing i remember before waking up was her gums turning into some kind of a blue sponge with teeth dangling from its edges.

Psycho eh! I'm just glad it wasn't me watching myself in the mirror in the dream.

Life in aminated motion

I love animation. In all its forms. I guess I never grew up after all and cartoon network is to blame for it. It was the one channel I couldn't stop watching no matter what. It started with Tom and Jerry (which still continues) continued with "chaddi wala phul" Mowgli (One of the primary reasons I hated the dance classes was they they would clash with Jungle Book), Chip n Dale.. basically anything and everything being shown on Doordarshan. Cartoon Network was a luxury available only in vacations.

Things I loved on CN:
1. Tom n Jerry
2. Roadrunner Show
3. Johnny Quest
4. The Centurions (The show was boring but I loved the name of one of the characters - Ace McCloud!)
5. Swat Cats
6. Ninja Robots (It wasn't very popular but I loved it anyway.. that was the first anime i saw even though I didn't know it was an anime at that time)
7. Laff-a-lympics

Then Animax happened. And I loved it.
I won't go into the history of why anime (thats what Japanese animation is called) is distinct from normal animation. You can read it up on wiki if interested.

Must watch
1. Bleach
2. Rouroni Kenshin
3. Death Note
4. Naruto
5. Samurai Champloo
6. Trinity blood
7. Kare Kano (first time I saw an anime where everyone is absolutely normal.. no magic, no machines, no demons, no swords... a simple love story set in a school.. it was kinda cool)

But currently I'm totally "Bleached" :D