The Mumbai blasts provided more salacious space for the media to celebrate some more "breaking" stories. This time it was live  cover - drama for 48 hours. They had not had such an ongoing performance since little Prince fell down that tube well a couple of years ago. Except that, this was a dedication of unbelievable AK 47 totting, impeccably trained, committed, young and awesomely misled terrorists like none we have ever seen before. As I write this I am not sure if this is the end of the beginning of a new genre in terrorism and if the cliché “we live in fear” that lot of people mouth hasn’t indeed come true to haunt us.

We do not live in fear. We live in awe of fear. Those of us who lose loved ones grieve and are angered at a personal level against a faceless enemy. Others merely move on clicking their tongues, without a thought until the next set of buildings or markets or malls come under siege. Then it is back to the media circus of visuals, non-stop chatter, the same clichés, the same chest thumping declarations of ‘the terrorists shall not beat us’  and the accompanying blather.

The truth is they do beat us.. every time… and laugh at us with their willing deaths. And we helplessly give in to defeat everytime we lose our lives. In the 'us' and 'them' battle, I am afraid we are more vulnerable and weaker. But do we admit that? No. We talk big. We talk brave. Anchor Pronoy Roy was almost shouting in some kind of outraged righteousness at the unidentified terrorist on how we are going to be indefatigable and unfazed. From Obama to the lowly blogger we constantly aver that we will beat them by not giving up. Tell me does that mean anything at all? It can only mean something if we were to take precautions like the USA or Isarael in preventing them from ever getting to us. Otherwise, it is empty words. They have in fact shown us audaciously that they can walk in anywhere anytime and get us all gunned down. Shame!  

Srinivasan Jain of  NDTV could not contain his glee as he reported live from the Taj, Rahul of Times Now sounded like he was giving us a cricket commentary outside Nariman House and Bak bak Barkha nearly jumped and clapped when her bak bak was interrupted by a blast from behind her. Goswami had a panel of commentators, I recall Gerson Decuna talking 'twice' on two shows,  about how India would fight terror. Arnab then went into some kind of aggressive fit where he jabbed the air with both his fingers in an attempt to find answers and accused people of hypocricy. The gall of the man!! He had Sanjana Kapoor who I think can't talk without dramatic acting anymore due to her Prithvi association. In her Brit accented English she dragged words like hugeeeeee as if to make an impact...  he had Arjun Rampal who loved the sound of  his voice and mouthed a few vague solutions but none of them said the most obvious thing – Intelligence. It was only ex top cop Rebeiro who mentioned Intelligence as the key to prevention of terror.

Their attack was on how our security forces did  not know how to handle a crisis hostage  situation. The politicians had done nothing for us (yawn)  How brave our police were coz 11 of them died.. mera bharat mahan… and I am thinking…..  why would the chief of the ATS go in guns flashing like John Wayne? Whatever happened to bullet proofs and helmets? Is there no such thing as checking out suspects? Someone said this morning he did have a bullet proof that he had removed thinking that the encouter was over when he was shot!!!  Hello? And we call this our finest cop???? I am truly scared. Khamte is supposed to have died trying to drag this chap out of the jeep and got rewarded with point blank heaven!! Now that they are dead we can go into eulogies, and ask no embarrassing questions. Modi can compete with Vilasrao and offer one crore… every politician can show his bald pate and demand z cover from the depleting police force who are promptly deployed to ‘save’ their derrieres even in a time of crisis.  After all the only safe place is under the Gandhi cap… Where O where is our Marati manoos Raj Thackeray and his vanar sena?

This is not about the commandos not flushing the terrorists out in half a day. This is about not having an efficient intelligence network. This is  about not collecting enough information to make sure there were  no hostages in the first place.  How is it there is no vigilance on sea or air or land and these men could transport weapons that were so huge and heavy? Why is it terrorists give up their lives to kill the common man but never a politician? Why?  Why is it the media that barks loudest and fastest when the crisis hits is never seen after it is over? Why do they never question the wretched ministers on what action they have taken to redeem their stinking chairs? Why is there so much self -congratulation in the face of so many dead? Why do we have a soppy sentimental fascination for survivor stories?

 By the way people don’t blame our police ok? Large contingents of police have in the last two months spent their meager energies on more pressing needs:

1. Arresting bar girls
2. Arresting kids at rave parties
3. Subjecting night drivers to breathalyzer tests.
4. Making sure no one smokes in public.
5. Other sundry stuff like covering MNS chief for security

Terrorists? Ha bhai yaad hai … par itna bada shehar… bhala ek police ki toli kya kar sakti hai?