Black Friday

As I type this, the TV is beaming out pictures of commandos dropping out of helicopters onto locations in the heart of Mumbai, of smoke and flames billowing out of probably the most beautiful hotel that I have ever seen amidst reports from various governments giving a body count of how many of their citizens have been killed. It is hard to believe all this is happening in India and not the Middle East. Of course, this is punctuated by the best deals for buying the cheapest products this season.

I was wondering why the Americans call a day of happiness, when they do most of their shopping before the festive season, "Black Friday". I don't care anymore. I know what I will remember the rest of my life when I hear the words "Thanksgiving" and "Black Friday".

My thoughts are incoherent right now. I was not in South Mumbai like a celebrity blogger when this happened, nor do I have the superb writing skills of another celebrity blogger to properly explain my feelings of anger, sadness and frustration that I feel right now. However, there is one thought that crossed my mind as I watched the TV reports call this "India's 9/11".

This is my request to the news channels: please don't call this India's 9/11. You are insulting all the martyrs of 9/11 and making a laughing stock out of India. The 9/11 attacks sparked off the war in Afghanistan. It removed the Taliban rule and forced Bin Laden to flee (I know that's not exactly success, but... whatever). Irritated as I was with President Bush's comment that "Either you are with us, or you are against us," I could not help admiring the US government for showing the world what happens to people who mess with their country.

Now we will show the world how we treat people who mess with our country. India in a peace loving country: we believe in Gandhi. If someone attacks Mumbai, we will turn another city on to them. Our Prime Minister will probably visit the country behind these attacks on a bus or train, and try to establish loving relations with them. If we feel very angry, we will probably cancel our next cricket series with that country. And yes, we will condemn the attacks in the strongest terms. Already the Intelligence Bureau has confirmed that this is a terrorist attack (it's quite amazing how fast they can find out things these days!). When all we need is a good old fashioned war, we will be doing everything other than just that. I am no expert, but it does make me wonder why we pour out all that money on our defense budget every year if we don't have the guts to go out and fight.

Did US intelligence cooperate with the Afghan intelligence agency (if such a thing existed) after 9/11? I never heard that they did! However, reports just in say that the chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI is coming to Mumbai for cooperating with India in combating terror. Now that's what I call good news. That just shows how committed Pakistan is towards eradicating terrorism. Of course, things are not going too well with our poor neighbour: the news channels here in the US and even some government agencies have already started accusing Pakistan directly for the attacks (an ex-FBI man actually said "That's hogwash!" on TV on hearing the news that Pakistan has no information of the attackers' mother ship leaving Karachi). But I'm sure our government will not be swayed by these facts. India is the land of Gandhi. We take pride in the fact that we have never attacked a country in recorded history, and surely we cannot let that nice fact get destroyed now by a rash decision.

All that is fine with me. I do not expect anything else. I only have one request.

Please do not call this India's 9/11. It is not. Not until we have something like the Afghan war following it. 9/11 was a decisive incident in the history of the world. The Mumbai attack is just the latest one among the hundreds of insignificant attacks on India over the last 60 years. Let it remain that way.