More Spirits in the Night

Its been 5 days after the attacks happened in Mumbai... and I have a cocktail of feelings - anger, betrayal, insulted, cheated, lied to, and disgusted. For the first time, the affluent people were targeted and the main location chosen (The Taj Mahal Hotel) is a structure we are so proud of.

As always, 2 things are going to happen: our citizens will blame the politicians for the disaster (which they started immediately), and in a few days time, the 'Spirit of Mumbai' will take over and normalcy will return.

I hate the phrase 'Spirit of Mumbai'. Whoever coined that phrase - Bachi Karkaria or whoever - needs to be dragged out of their plush South Mumbai homes and made to live in one of the filthy suburbs... and made to travel for 90 minutes to work and be stuck in traffic during the monsoons for 3 hrs. Only then that idiot will know that the Spirit of Mumbai and its 'Anything goes' attitude sucks and is the sole reason why our roads are the worst, our overall machinery sucks and our security is periodically violated upon.

The politicians deserve a lot of flack. But they deserve as much flack as the people who voted them in. The idea of a democracy is to get you leaders to stand up and be accounted for. As citizens, if we don't demand, leaders will not provide. The leaders had information (intelligence) that there were terror attacks bound to happen. They slept on it. Our borders are so porous that anybody can smuggle in weapons and RDX at will. Despite paying so much tax, there is nothing to be seen in terms of homeland security.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Trident at 10pm to get an interview done with the lead actress of our film. At the main entrance, we were stopped by the guard who asked us the take the rear entrance as we had lots of equipment in boxes (camera, lights, teleprompter). We took the rear entrance, and no one checked us. We could have easily walked in with whatever and done anything we wanted. So much for security. In such cases, how do you blame the police or the politicians? The folks at the Trident Oberoi say that security and hospitality don't go hand-in-hand. Wow!!

Now for the actual attacks and the real culprit. The Leopold attack was equivalent to a gang-bang session. Something not many cities can avoid. The Taj though is a different matter. Look at the link here.

The guys had information about a terror issue and had upped their security by a bit. They also decided to have security only at the main entrance because in the code of terrorism, the terrorists will enter only from the main door. I was aghast when i read this. The management of the 2 hotels are 100% responsible for the safety of their guests and patrons - there is no excuse there. These guys fucked up at their job. Period.

The journalists are another lot who need to be slapped. And the leader of them all is that silly ass Barkha Dutt. There is no point getting all emotional about the event. Just go ahead and do some reporting without getting all excited and self-righteous. The sight of her trying to get a shot of the carnage at the Taj after the attacks were over was revolting. That is our problem - discipline. All of us lack it. We hate to be frisked at check-points because it violates our human rights... and we are a democratic country after all. In disciplined countries, that site would have been cordoned off as it was a location under investigation. Anything done by Barkha Dutt or her asinine associates could actually tamper with evidence. But no - they all had to try their best to get in and get so dramatic about it... 'oh just a few hours ago, a couple may have been here sipping on some tea. Now look at this place - all that remains in broken china'. It makes me sick.

Last night, the stupid pig conducted another episode of 'We The People'. Her panel included prominent citizens of Mumbai - Bachi Karkaria (fake retard living in a make-believe world), Ratna Pathak (why on the panel - I don't know), Ness Wadia (yea right, Surname syndrome), Luke Kenny (what the fuck. Really - what the fuck), Kunal Kohli (give me a break), Simi Garewal (the height of stupidity) MN Singh (I bet he was thinking - what the hell am I doing here). It was excruciating to watch Barkha conduct the session. She was behaving like a grandma-matron.

And finally, the disaster tour conducted by Vilasrao Deshmukh (the Chief Minister - or Chief Idiot of Maharashtra). He actually took his son (whatever actor Rietiesh Deshmukh) and the god of pathetic film-making - Ram Gopal Varma along with him. What were these two jokers doing there? How were they allowed in? And why were they at such a crime scene while the investigation was not complete? I felt insulted when I watched it on TV - and am sure most of India did too.

Atleast RR Patil is out of the way - now will someone please tell Deshmukh that its time to get out of power and reap the benefits of all the bribes he took for the past few years - and leave us in peace? And lets us get responsible. Its high time we stopped taking shit in the name of 'spirit' and its about time we got some discipline in our own lives.