we are like this only

I don't know whether apathy or pathetic-ness is a better way to describe the attitude of the government to the gruesome event last week in Mumbai. This is a government that has raised inaction and incapability to a new high. From the time that the attacks till almost a full day later, no official spokesperson from the government appeared on national television to inform India's citizens of what was going on, what was being done and what the citizens should be doing, how they could help. And what we got after the day's wait was a low-voiced mumble reading out a speech which made the words "We are not prepared to countenance a situation in which the safety and security of our citizens can be violated with impunity by terrorists" sound less threatening than my daughter's threat of 'Chandamama tumhare sar be broke doonga' ( I'll break the moon over your head. Nobody from the powers-that-think-they-be thought that there was a need to control and direct

There was a proverb that said every dark cloud has a silver lining. I can’t think of one to the Mumbai attack by terrorists, can you? The only thing that the attack has done for India is to rip the mask off from the faces of our politicians and shown them up for the scheming, soulless, power and publicity-hungry creatures that they are. To my mind, they are far, far worse than terrorists who at least have the mitigating factor of believing so strongly in their cause that they are willing to sacrifice their own lives for it. Politicians on the other hand believe in no cause, no value and no ethic apart from the ones of money, power and self-aggrandizement. It is absolutely foul to see Mumbai plastered with hoardings by each political party in praise of the three police chiefs who died. The same parties which bayed for their blood when they performed their jobs in a way the party did not like are now trying to benefit even from their deaths by indulging in a gross game of friendlier-than