First Among Equals

26/11 and the three subsequent days that followed were definitely not the set of days we would love to come across again. Not even in our dreams. Hundreds being killed mercilessly, TV footage showing thousands running for their lives whole through the night and the infamous statements by few top cops later, that goes on to prove that among the thousands running for their lives that fateful night were few of our policemen who either choose to stay indoors, giving their duty a skip or were seen running at the first row among the bewildered crowd.

More tragedy and torture of various forms were awaiting for the people who were either at the mid of the crossfire or guys like me who were glued to the TV set for almost 72 hours to get the very latest which our ever so prompt News channels were eagerly telecasting. It took some time for the dust to settle. After relentless effort by our NSG, Journos like Burkha Dutt and Maharuf Inayat, crawling on the ground to telecast the inside story of room no 302 of Taj Hotel, where a man was shown peeing, which these brave journos claimed to be a said gunman, the then Home Minister shown the door, so that he can concentrate on his dressing sense and hair style full time, CM of Maharastra given a lesson or two for getting confused that Taj after the operations is a picnic spot like Mahabelswar but not a sensitive zone, and being strongly reprimanded for bringing in his actor (minus the acting) son and a third graded director along with, as if they are for a morning walk, the Home minister of Maharstra was advised to attend his Hindi and English classes regularly, so that he chooses a better statement next time, rather than going for a movie dialogue. It certainly took a lot of comedy for the dust to settle. Poor terrorists (9 of those), would be dearly unhappy up their in hell that, the amount of chaos they tried to create by their vendetta was effortlessly being underpowered by the comedy created by the media and our beloved politicians later.

When everyone thought, the worst is over, our politicians threw a dice or two of surprises. The most sorry part for all the citizens was the absence of our chief of armed forces. She rather preferred to be out of this mesh and carried on with her official visit(read vacation) of Bali. She even never thought it is necessary to thank the guys who were involved in the operation with something like 'Good job done guys', after she returned. As the general election was round the corner and Delhi elections on the same week, our then Govt decided to install a not so stylish, new face for the post of Home minister, as a face saving exercise. The competent factor was never a concern I thought. What we saw after that, is the complete massacre of democracy for last one year. Qasab enjoying Biriyani at the Aurther road jail in a 6 crore bunglow, Sivsena and alike fighting, who should be or shouldn't be presenting the lone captured terrorist in court, the ever resilient Mumbaikars going for a candle light vigil and politician bashing, someone writing a poem like 'Aur Isbaar nehin', all getting irritated with the same statement with different ascents, the prominent being the Bengali one: 'vall optons var hopen'. All Options were and are still open for everyone one year down the line, starting from the home minister to defence minister. Thankfully our PM, never had any options open or closed ever.

Too much of effort was invested by all for the things to settle down a bit. No sooner it happened, the media promptly brought about another issue, which nobody would have dreamt off, to increase their TRP which was in a downward swing : Thanks to no major terrorist attack in last one year. On the one year eve of this dreaded attack I happened to see a so called remembrance show, where the host put forward a question to the set of already overtly confused guests : "Did media followed more on Taj & Trident happening, because the elite mass of the society caught in the crossfire there?" The guests excelled with a sudden bout of superiority complex for being tabled as the elite mass, started answering like seasoned intellectuals. Leading the bunch of guests was Anupam Kher. When confronted with the question, Mr.Kher with drowsing eyes like lord Buddha, creased his bald head before starting with the finer points of the NSG operation. The details must have blasted the day lights out of Mr.Dutta who was head of NSG and was in the thick of things at both the hotels. Mr.Dutt watch out.Your job is in serious danger as Mr.Kher even knows things which never happened. Getting to the actual question he was promptly being joined by another baldy, Mr. Mahesh Bhatt, who more often than not seen blowing the secular trumpet unnecessarily. Mr.Bhatt went ahead and being an adherent fan of Pakistan, tried to somehow point out that Pakistan's hand should not be too confirmed when there are thousand glaring disjoints in the investigation and findings. The problem is that, there were no one to represent the poor chaps who lost their lives at CST and Cama Hospital. This shows which places among the four were being zoomed in more by this grossly hypocrite media. Of course I do believe that the hotels got the maximum coverage for their stature in society. I never saw a soul roaming around with a camera or crawling journalists at Gauhati suburb market when the bomb blast killed more than five dozen guys there. No body bothered for 62 those died at CST.After all who cares for a bunch of guys, maximum constituents of which are migrant labourers.

This debate could continue just like 'chicken first or egg' for ever. We would have more baldies advocating for one side or the other. if you ask the babus and politicians whose decisions do matter, on what we learnt from 26/11, I assure you, you would be hearing exiting answers for the rest of your life. The fact is we haven't learnt anything. The police department is as badly managed as it was, top cops are more interested in addressing the media than addressing the security concerns of the common mass , same bunch of crooks back again at the helm of affairs, just only 40% turnout for assembly election and last but not the least : 'All options are still open'.