What is the spirit of Mumbai?

Started off thinking of not titling this post. But finally decided agaisnt it.

I feel like personally going and slapping each and every single person who utters the words, "Spirit of Mumbai"

I want them to define this spirit of Mumbai.

Is it people refusing to stay at home the very next day after an event like this?

Them rushing towards the nearest local train station or bus stop, wanting to reach their offices and sign the muster before the 'late-entry' is marked?

Or is it the apathy that allows us to carry on with life as if nothing has happened or better still,  thank god, nothing has happened to me or people I know, so screw the rest. When it happens, we'll see.

I do not think Mumbai has any spirit that needs to be celebrated.

It is plain and simple FEAR.

Fear that if they do not reach work the next day, a day's pay or leave will be deducted.

If they do not reach on time, half a day's pay or leave would be taken away.

If at all this is the spirit of Mumbai, why does it only show itself during terror strikes and not during day-to-day living?

If this indeed is the real thing, why don't we see people filling up train compartemnts, bus stops, crowding near elevators whenever a bundh has been called? 

Why isn't there any display of this 'we will not stay down'?

Any living person. no matter what his beliefs are, even a city or a nation has only one spirit. You can't have one for terror attacks and one for other occasions. 

So i guess it isn't spirit  after all.

It is an HR Manager or Admin Head.

Normally we get a heads up when it comes to bundhs, which is more than enough time for those mails to be floating around saying, "Although tomorrow is not an official holiday, we would suggest you stay at home and do not venture out. Also, no pay nor leave will be deducted."

Phew! that takes care of that.

And in offices where there is no intra mail, it generally is a memo that a peon happily passes around, which every employee reads and readily signs off.

Would really like to see a situation where we got a heads up on attacks and similar mails or memos were passed around.

Till then, it is a case of the flesh is willing (to stay at home) but the spirit is weak.

* I have never been a fan of hers. But simply loved her and her opinions. Watch on...

It will not happen to me...

These are the exact words, that resonate in my cranium whenever there were attacks of any kind, in Mumbai or elsewhere.

I need not worry about that serial blast. I was safe as I do not take the train or the bus.

The taxi, yes. The auto, sometimes. But I ask the taxi driver, “Dickki check kiya na?”

I have ticked one of the few boxes in my own mental security sheet. 

Conveniently though, never thought about my work place or my residential space being targeted.

But the attacks on the 26th of November were different.  Not just because it wasn’t yet another of those serial blasts or human bombs or anything that we had been exposed to.

But because it proved without the shadow of a doubt that it is not just the common man who is a potential target. The rich, the powerful, the ‘it will not happen to me’ kinds as well. Which included me.

Never watched as much News in my entire life as I did in the past few days. Did not itch to check out what’s going on in sports or Nat Geo or any music channel. They had me and an entire nation transfixed.  They even had the firang  media interested as well. The CNN’s and BBC’s of the world did cover it in depth. They had to after all it wasn’t just another case of brown skins killing one another. The white skins were affected as well.

I do not feel like blaming anyone. Seriously I am appalled but think it’s my fault as much as anyone else’s.

Yes, I get angry when they want to frisk me at movie theatres.

Yes, I get angry when they want to open my knapsack at malls.

Yes, it irritates me to walk through those metal detector doors. And the beeps just add to my irritation.

I’m in no mood for an argument, so will not react to those who say, “Even if I do comply, they do such a shoddy job of it anyways!”

All I am saying is that why don’t we insist on them checking us thoroughly instead of having that look in our eyes or let our raised eyebrows spell each and every alphabet in, “Fool, you think I will be carrying a bomb? I will be??”

why?

Why is a rich man always framed in a rape case, while a commoner 'surely must have done it'?

Why do we drop someone whenever we give them a lift?

Why do we have minutes of a meeting that has lasted for a few seconds?

Why do we want to wear full pants when you're 10 and shorts when you are 70?

Why is it a problem  when the rubber solution  is spilt?

Why is my phone  always inferior to the iphone?

Why don't we get a chance to use logarithmic tables in day-to-day life?

the big fat Arya Samaj wedding

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few pages as to why I haven't been around to write.

Vivek Iyer wed Michelle Swamy on the 17th of November, 2008 and then again on the 22nd. (Sorry brother, did not carry my camera!)

Vineet Gupta wed Apsara Chidambaram on the 23rd of November, 2008.