"We shall be known by the delicacy of where we stop short." Robert Frost's beautiful line bears repetition at a time when we are maxed out on Mumbai. While an avalanche of 26/11 commemoration was only to be expected, the tawdriness has been truly remarkable. Candles were lit and hands were linked across the country, schoolchildren made to paint placards with earnest, empty platitudes they cannot begin to comprehend. Nariman House, the site of unspeakable violence, was thrown open to the public as another venue for this tacky festival. Television retrospectives and discussions have plonked every nerve, as survivors, state officials, politicians and randomly chosen movie stars weighed in on the tragedy. The city's morning rush hour was interpreted as evidence of its spirit and resilience. Meanwhile, Mumbai has become a fairground for terror, and T-shirts and souvenirs probably aren't far away.
If we recoil from this spectacle, it is not from embarrassment, about vulgar emotion -- public sorrow usually has its own valid, self-involved logic, and should not be compared against the feelings of those personally affected by the tragedy. But there is something especially suspect and mass-manufactured about all this public grief -- with India's long and terrible history of terrorist attacks, it is demeaning and silly to attempt a 9/11-style circus of commemoration. After all, 9/11 was a moment of rupture and genuine incomprehension for Americans, and they reacted like a country that had been sucker-punched. Ground Zero became a spontaneous shrine, messages and poems and keepsakes fluttered through the devastated site. There were parades of mourning, and street-corner discussions, and through it all, the sense of a country trying to understand what just happened.
In India, that kind of memorialising seems not just imitative, but also mawkish and fake, especially when it's state-sponsored. Mumbai Police, for instance, paraded from Trident hotel to Girgaum Chowpatty, showing off shiny new weaponry from AK-47s to amphibious vehicles -- reminding us of how they were failed by shoddy equipment and slack reflexes last November. What makes this carnival of remembrance especially awful is how little has changed in Mumbai, how easy the aftermath was for those who should have been held accountable.
Source: Indian Express
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Your excellent article really sums up our nature of imitative functionality, a little insensitivity and "me too" kind of behaviour. A mela which didn't need to be showcased like this.
I agree this media carnival was not at all necessary and I wish to congratulate you on your keen perception and analysis of the whole spectacle.It was overdone on 26/11 last year and now too. We need to do some introspection indeed.
Would like to know the name of this author who shares my views too.
How come we do not have anniversaries for Kargil and candle light processions? Why not for the Jaipur blasts? Why not for the Godhra incident? Why not for the Bombay blasts in '93? Why not the 'Transistor bombs' in Delhi DTC buses in '83 or sometime then?
It is just because we have started hyping up our identity over the past few years through this gamut od television channels and because it was some high profile places accessible only to the social elite.
India's hypocrisy is pretty evident when it comes to having the desire to be noticed. Desperate identity crisis.
Its actually hyperbole in our country both for media and administration.We are so unfortunate that leader like vilas ro desmukh and r r patil was inaugurating the function which was conducted in the memory of martyrs.The leopold bar conducted rock concert and sold so many beers in the memory of the victims.Actually our media has to be more responsible and they they could have given a relative performance of our govt.'s promise and deliverables aftermath.
Who ever, the writer above Mr. Frosts, its easy to say whats been done above, but it was in deed known that terrorism was thriving way back in the 1980's which was being brought up by India in many forms even mentioning where the cradle of terrorism lies. Even we who work abroad have seen these matters being instigated in the name of religion and were aware of its origin. All these were very given a blind eye by US and other EU countries. It was only when US soil was the receiver, did US wake up to the terror. If not the situation would have been the same today. Leave alone no one can today give an answer as to why was Iraq attacked or US engaged in that unwanted war.
On the next part of the hype on 26/11 commemoration, the west and also the above writers should know that the brain behind such happenings were developed by India, not the west or US. A simple example the use of songs / albums that were made by the west using the indian theme of where one sees singing along running in the garden etc. The west were just used to having songs with a solo artist performing and singing along. Did you guys see a boy running around with or chasing a girl with the hip shakes, and the huge set up of a group of boys and girls dancing in a synchronized manner.
26/11 is what happened in mumbai, atleast with television the world remembers and comes to know that something of this magnitude did happen. (Previously and even today some Americans or EU population do not know where or what it means by India)
It's all media driven. Off late some segments of media are becoming so irresponsible asking family members of those affected as to how they are feeling. So much hype and nothing on ground.
Though nothing in this world will beat spirit of India but this public display of emotion was indeed fake.