Me Mumbaikar’s Blog

The aftermath of Mumbai 26/11 makes me beleive that a handful of terrorists can havoc in the peaceful country, and we as ordinary citizens and media people put together makes it sucessful. This makes the “Saint out of a sinner”, for fundamendalists, these terrorists becomes God.

Lets review the post Mumbai 26/11 impact on our political front, we have our Home Minister steps down, our finance minister moves to Home Ministry and our Prime Minister will handle his normal job as well as the finance minstry. At this stage of global recession where we need finace minster in full swing, we have a part time finance minister, and Home Minister who has little expertise in handling Home Land Security portfolio before…this is at the national level. At state level we have our Deputy CM stepping down, our CM has put the papers, and waiting for the feedback from the high command.

Every body is waitng to captilze on the aftermath, this gives them a better platform to start a blame game. This is not limited to our politicans, even companies like LIC, on 30th of Nov LIC has circulated a sms message saying that they have cleared the LIC claim of Hemant Karkare with in 24 hours of the event, what are they trying to do? Hard-Sell that , they are prompt in processing the claim?

The business for tour operators were slow due to the global meltdown and added that the attack will impact tourist inflows to the city, both from within and outside the country. The tourism trade would take a huge hit as the season had just begun, this will also directly impact the currency liquidity in the market as well as the small time traders in mumbai who’s main business are with the tourist.

Wall Street Journal Quotes ….”The deadly attacks in Mumbai, in addition to the human toll, have damaged the city’s ambitions of becoming an international finance capital. The Taj Mahal hotel and the Oberoi Trident Hotel, luxury hotels that were both targeted, are among the most coveted retail address for luxury-goods firms that are tapping into India’s growing number of wealthy individuals.”

I am having a fear of going out to dine with my family or friends , I am having the fear that some one will barge in and start firing, haven’t the terrorists being successful in impacting my thought process about security at my town.  During the initial phase of the attacks the number of terrorists were more than 20, now they are accounting only for 10, so whats the truth, do we still have some terrorists roaming in our neighborhood? Am I panicked? or Am I panicked by the media by providing me with the unwarranted news?

Our Insane Media adds fuel…

If these are not enough, our media is making statements like “We should rage war on the neighbors” , these kind of statements make our investors / foreign investors to think twice before they invest in the business process. And our media is keep on forgetting that there are lot of people in Fortune 1000 companies who are watching India closely, as some of their business process are outsourced here either as BPO / ITES or in terms of Software development / support. These kind of statements can have a big impact to these industries.

If I am a Fortune 1000 Company outsourcing my work to India here is my first thought…What would happen to my operations if a full-scale war broke out between Pakistan and India ? The answer is , I will suffer a catastrophic loss of their operations. These kind of events can bring down the day to day oursourcing operations to stand-still and who will be responsible for this? We dont have a definite answer for this and we will never have it…since for us these kind of teror operations become a day to day event, Oh there was a blast in Kurla last week, but everything is normal today…and the media will what ever possible to blame the politicians and the authorities , not because they are concerned about the people, but, they will get more TRPs ….before the analysis and the report come in we will start the blame game, and the funny thing is they wont even apologize the people whom they have defamed out of mistake…what we are forgetting in the middle of this is, these statements and blame games has direct impact on our small time business man, export business etc., as everybody is watching us through the media….if you give out the wrong information without being official, the people are going to get scared.

At no point any of the Indian officals has said, they are going to attack Pakistan, but the media has started their own view point by saying that we will attack Pakistan, this has created so much panic that Rice has to fly down to India immediately so that the tensions between India and Pakistan has reduced and no war will started…

Can some one leash the media whos unleased and spreading rumors?

There is always one statement after every Terror Attack or Disaster that happens in Mumbai, that’s called “The Spirit of Mumbai” . What exactly is this spirit?

The Hidden-Truth

Its nothing but the fact of survival, if we don’t go to office the next day of the incident, there might be some one else sitting at your desk. It’s a state of compellation, the fear of losing business, the fear of losing clients, the fear of losing money , the fear of losing position, the fear of the missing opportunity. As every body knows Mumbai has a highly competitive environment, here 40% of people are depending on their daily earnings , they don’t have the leverage of taking off on the next day, a small time share broker cannot take a day’s off, as he has to survive , he needs to invest and re-invest in stock markets on day to day basis.

Given a chance these people are also ready to take rest , their family members are also concerned as much as anybody in any part of the world. But the life goes on, they have to ’sing for their supper’ which leads them on to the streets or to their business locations.

The Politicians view

The politicians exploit this statement “The spirit of Mumbai” , they are pushing it beyond the limit. They use this statement to cover up all their mistakes , they might have already utilized the resources (read: money / funds) for their personal purpose, due to which certain these causalities happened, now they want to cover it up, how? say …”The Spirit of Mumbai”

The tax payments consolidated in Mumbai amounts 40-50% of the entire India’s tax collection. Maharashtra being on the top in tax collection, is due to Mumbai being in their state, check out the gross tax collection of rest of Maharashtra against Mumbai, it will be a minor fraction of the entire value. Even after contributing so much to the state and the country we complain only when some disaster happens, a couple of weeks after that, we forget it till the next incident…this is called “The Spirit of Mumbai”. Being fools and believing in the politicians statements on the media, and expecting some big change is going to come and forget about this in the due course of time…this is the spirit every politician wants so that they can make more money in cricket, buy land in the places like Lonawala, Pune and other upcoming locations, participate in a reality show , divide the people with provocative statements etc., And still we vote for these politicians and make him/her win for the next time…this is called “The Spirit of Mumbai”.

Is this what “The spirit of Mumbai” is all about?

No, the actual spirit of Mumbai is its people, who have come from various locations with various dreams , who speaks various languages live together harmoniously without reflecting any of these differences and being a helping hand to each other when there is a need…this is spirit of Mumbai.

These are the same people who keep Ganapathi at their house regardless their background has the ritual to keep the idol at home. These are the same people who celebrate ID with their Muslim neighbors. These are the same people who try to learn the neighbor’s language. These are the same people who help their neighbor’s son or daughter in their employment or business. These are the same people who will be there for you regardless their busy business schedule…these are the same people who keep the spirit of Mumbai alive.

When a disaster or terror happens in the city, these are the people who helps the security personals with food and snacks , these are the people who update the family with the whereabouts of their loved ones when disaster strikes us, these are the people who will help you with cash and kind as and when needed, these are the people who take care of your children when you are not around or sick. This is called “the spirit of Mumbai”

The current affair..

No matter what ever happens the spirit of Mumbai will be alive, but suddenly everybody started having the feeling that we have been exploited by this statement : “the spirit of Mumbai”.  We don’t want resignations of the ministers or the security chiefs. We want results, we want to know the following…

• Who attacked our city
• Why they attacked the city
• How could they enter the city
• Why we failed in protecting our city.
• Why don’t we have a proper planning of the city
• Is our city the only target or are there going to be more attacks in other part of India
• Accountability of the Tax payer’s money spend on the security.
• Now what are the future plans to protect the city (we just need the areas not the information on how you will protect and what technology you use)
• We need to know fool proof your new plan will be ( as we don’t want you to come back and say our security measures were only for the terrorists who come by water or come be train, if they come by plane we haven’t thought about it…)

We also understand terrorism is something we cannot avoid, no matter how ever we try they will still crack us, but our security measures should be in such a way, were by we can reduce the collateral damage during these kind of situations, we can reduce the number of death toll, we can reduce the amount of loss in our assets / property.

We don’t want the government to focus on some corporate project on building rails and roads, when we already have enough infrastructure to move on peacefully, the infrastructure development is causing us to spend more on reaching the destination leave alone the petrol cost and the maintenance cost due to this new infrastructure . We dont want the politicians to escape from the blame by simply resigning from the post. We want results.

Even after these kind of requests and protest in various way to our government , nothing will happen, what ever they want to do , they will do it no matter who raise the voice …they have media partners who are there to cover for them , keep the people’s mind out of these kind of thoughts…make the people believe that they are staying in a safe country…by making some singers sing patriot songs …making some film personalities saying ..”Bharat Matha Ki Jai” ….as fools we will also recite the same….Thats is “The Spirit of Mumbai”….