I don't know if it is only me or Bombay and the cops have been credited wrongly of a lot of things in the past few days so I would like to discuss them here and I know I am going to upset a few people in the process (specially who love Bombay)

The incident I am talking about is the serial bomb blasts on the evening of eleventh of July. Seven bombs exploded in the local trains in Bombay in an interval of less than half an hour. It was a very well thought out plan and it succeeded as far as the terrorists behind it are concerned with the official toll of dead people rising to around 200. Anyone who has seen the local trains would agree that the actual number has to be much higher.

After the explosions, like after any other disaster in Bombay, people started talking about the “spirit” of Bombay. Can someone tell me what exactly the spirit of Bombay. Right after the bombs exploded, locals rushed to help the people in the train and they started the rescue work much before the cops got there. There were queues outside the blood banks for donating blood. This is a display of brotherhood that Mumbailkars displayed and have been displaying whenever something happens to the city. Tell me is it something unique to Bombay, in other cities too whenever something like this happens, people rush to help who have suffered, this is more visible and obvious in Bombay because Bombay seems to have more than her fair share of misfortunes, man-made and natural.

The other thing that everyone is so proudly talking about is how Bombay was back to business the very next day. The newspapers, the media and the blogsphere was full the “spirit” of Mumbai—how Bombay refused to bow down to the terror and how it was back to business and all that. Personally I suspect that it is complete indifference. Although you will find a lot of people helping out others in times of crisis like this but the attitude is “OK bombs went off in the trains but nothing happened to me. I better get to work, mujhe kya fark padta hai” Go and ask the families of those who have died in the blasts do they also share the same “spirit” of Bombay—the spirit of indifference? Very Unlikely. Bombay has sprung back to its feet and back on the action but leaving behind those who are actually affected by the tragedy. For them the time has stood still and it will take an awful lot of will power and time before the life is back to normal.

While the Mumbaikars have shown the spirit of Bombay, the administration is busy working on how to avoid such tragedies. They are planning to remove the overhead compartments from the trains and also block the space below the seats. This will be more of a problem for commuters than a safeguard against the bombs. At this point let me tell you something about my cousin's cricket team. He plays cricket for his office and during one of their match, their bowlers were hit around the park and a lot of boundaries were scored and every time a boundary was hit, the captain would move a fielder to that spot instead of setting a field and making his bowlers bowl to it.

By removing the racks and blocking the space below seats we are doing the same thing. Are trains the only place where you can place bombs? We had explosions in buses and also at Gateway of India and I am sure the next time the terrorists target Mumbai, they can find other spots that will cause similar damage. What about shopping malls, there are so many of them all over Bombay and no one checks what you take in. To make the matter worse, a terrorist can take a bag full of explosive and deposit it with the store before doing a disappearing act. Airports also just look at a ticket before letting you in and if you carry a bomb in your handbag, no one will know about it till security check. Let aside going in the airport. The illegal hutments around the airport are a very good place to kill a few hundred people. With access to almost the runway, even a lousy shot can shoot an airplane down with a bazooka.

After the bomb blasts the people who have been criticised the most are the cops, even the PM told off cops for not acting on center's information. The Police may be at fault somewhere but is it really their fault. The prime minister accused Pakistan of supporting terrorists, we know beyond any shadow of doubt that Pakistan is training and arming terrorists and not only Pakistan, Bangladesh in involved in it too the proof of which is the fact that all seven bombers had Bangladeshi links. In a time like this, we are holding peace talks and sending buses and trains to Pakistan. How dumb is that. Why do we have to be nice to Pakistan when they routinely arrest our fishermen and call them spies? Sometime ago even Bangladesh arrested some of our soldiers, tortured them and released them. Why don't we close our borders with those countries? Rather than being nice to people who are back-stabbing us, let's be nice to the citizens of this country by making it difficult for cross border terrorists to harm us, if not impossible.

Instead of passing the buck to the Police, it is the job of the government to ensure that such things don't happen. We have an intelligence division who should be able to fugure out what the terrorists are planning. We publish the pictures of terrorists camps in Pakistan but what action do we take against them? Our policy of inaction has resulted in Pakistan taking a piece of Kashmir and China taking a piece of North east India and what have we done? Even after 60 years of the incident we are trying to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. Tell me if someone forces his way in your home and takes over your living room, will you be trying to find a "diplomatic solution" or would you throw the intruder out. It is nice to hold Gandhi as an idol and practice non-violence but only with people who respect that. As the saying goes “Laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahin maante”.