Life as I find it

Awesome, Isn’t it? How much of a fool can the media make of themselves? The whole Mumbai nightmare has been faithfully punctuated my bad reporting by the media.

One terrorist killed at Taj. Seven. uh, it was two. Two! Which two? I thought four…. but that wasn’t at Taj! That was at Oberoi……… If you look at my post that takes a look at how many terrorists were reported dead by the media, you wouldn’t worry about rumors saying 16 terrorists, because you could account for them then and there.

Which floor of the Taj was the fire on? 8th or the 13th? Were shots fired at CST on the next day or not? To me, it looks like there was very little reporting. What was, was a day and night National Level test match between different media. In a struggle to provide the most information, all boundaries of insignificant hassles like confidentiality needs in an ongoing operation, facts, verifications of rumors were simply wished away out of existence.

If the terrorists were actually able to sift information from crap by following the media, they shouldn’t be in LeT. Mensa is where they should be.

Yet, in the face of all the nonsense, there actually were completely irresponsible details broadcasted for all to hear – who all are coming to the location, how many commandos, live telecast of the helicopter dropping commandos on Nariman House….. I remember thinking that these terrorists were really incompetent. If I were a terrorist, with all the information I could get from the TV, I’d rig the terrace with bombs the minute I came to know there was a helicopter drop, and then sit happily on a lower floor watching TV to plan the exact moment to detonate it. Good it didn’t occur to these guys, but no thanks to the media for it.

I found it totally insane that “rumors” of a blast at CST were broadcast the next day in between announcements not to spread rumors. With all the fancy gadgets on location, apparently no one had a phone to call up the station and find out before throwing Mumbai in a panic.

And now finally this. It really takes the cake. The media guessed at the contents of the demarche!!!???!!! What’s more, the stupid government instead of throwing them into jail, played along with it, and we have spent a day arguing with Pakistan about how we want the wanted men deported and how they wouldn’t, and the scenario is heating up.

By the way, no apologies for misrepresenting situations, misleading people, misinforming them, etc have been seen. So basically, as long as the TRPs rise, just talk whatever crap you can.

I’m really puzzled about what all seems to pass for journalism in Indian Media. Honestly, this seems outright criminal to me. Definitely against the interests of the country. How can the media speculate about the contents of a confidential document between countries? What the hell is going on?

The sources also clarified that contrary to media reports in India and Pakistan, the demarche which was handed over to the Pakistani side earlier this week did not contain the list of 20 most wanted terrorists that had first been given to Islamabad in 2000. Once the media started saying India was demanding the immediate handing over of the 20 fugitives, of course, the Government could hardly contradict these reports since their return has been a long-standing Indian demand, the sources added. The demarche made only a pro forma reference to the return of unnamed fugitives but was otherwise exclusively focused on the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its leader Hafiz Saeed, whom New Delhi regards as the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror strikes.

Worse, the government is covering up for the media because they mention something they want? Hello boss! At this moment, what we want most is a less volatile situation.

Really folks. GROW UP!!!

We are trying to catch some terrorists here and avoid a war. Those 20 men have been a major hostile point which was introduced between two countries because some journalist as usual didn’t bother to verify what they were writing.

So of course, as a country, we pressurized another country and created anger and misunderstanding over something we hadn’t even planned to ask for just yet.

Disillusioned doesn’t begin to cover what I feel. I’m not even certain what’s true and what’s a journalists’ version of how things could be in all the news on the terror attack investigations.

As I look around at my beloved city ravaged for some obscure purpose, my blood boils. I read around on the net, drawn to the news reports like a horrific accident that I can’t bear or ignore. I see reports of devastated lives and responses from protest marches to non-cooperation.

On the other hand, I read about this sole surviving terrorist, the one hateful guy, and a part of me actually feels compassion for someone who leads such a wretched life that it seems worthwhile to throw it away for an adopted cause. For someone who probably has a family he’s worried about the consequences to. For someone who acted and now sees the ghastly consequences of his own actions. I wonder if it is not remorse (though he doesn’t claim any) that leads him to give so much of helpful information – a way to set things right. Because, while he could have been bluffing, much of his information checked out too.

Not that I’m asking for pardon for him or anything…. just….. pity. Perhaps gratefulness for the information that’s leading us to the source. Though I wish he hadn’t come to India in the first place.

Then I read of Pakistani refusal to deport the men on the wanted list. Demands for evidence as though everything coming up is a joke. Dismissive snubs like the list not containing anything new and not deserving a response….. and my blood boils. While they may be right and enforcing their own policy regarding people in their country, I’m not happy to sit and listen to the wording it is expressed in and no addressal of everything they can’t deny like terrorist captured red handed and his confession leading to finding of abandoned Indian boat (besides other things) with the dead body of the skipper; phones and wallets of terrorists with numbers of LeT members; he identified Muzammil’s voice when he was made to listen to intercepts; Pakistani made stuff like matchboxes, toothpaste, medical kits and clothes from Pakistan; intercepts of phone conversations to numbers in Pakistan; terror email being traced to Lahore address; etc – endless reports all over the net.

If initial reports were contradictory, they cleared up over time as investigation progressed. Not having set up the scene (like some conspiracy theories), the whole country was discovering stuff as the investigations progressed. Sure, the reporting was bad and tinged with panic, confusion and anxiety – you think that’s unnatural under the circumstances?

After all the (unused, or not used enough) intelligence warnings from the CIA, RAW, etc about an LeT attack planned….. You think people putting two and two together and calling it an LeT operation quickly is unrealistic? <—Not even bothering with links here. They are so abundant, if you missed them you need an internet connection.

BTW, so much for calling it impossible because security was not able to prevent it.

Hint: Read up on cognitive dissonance

Warnings to the US of not being able to support the war on terror in case of a strike by India happened at a time when no such thing had been talked about by India and constant references to Pakistan’s nuclear capability as the deterrent to a strike by India abounded – so much for the much claimed sympathy. My blood not just boils, its sick of reacting and wants to ACT.

I wonder how the US feels to actually be blackmailed to prevent a strike when its own policy is to follow the terrorists into their homes and its citizens are victims. I honestly doubt if the US is going to be manipulated as easily this time.

And what does Pakistan mean by “non-state actors”? They don’t belong to Pakistan? In that case, I’m sure they will not mind if we blow them off the face of the earth – after all, they ARE stateless – no country will retaliate.

Imagining myself in the position of our leaders, I wonder what are the things I can do. To begin with, why is it that a smaller country with a smaller nuclear arsenal is a deterrent to us even when we are protecting ourselves? It may not say it, but I bet it shits bricks to think of a retaliation from India and is only not worried because its not fool enough to invite it.

The other thing that pisses me off is that India is expected to be concerned about the stability of Pakistan more than Pakistan itself. Reminds me of a kid with a tantrum who needs someone else to change the diaper. As far as I am concerned, I’m willing to be irresponsible for a bit and let the responsibility for stability fall on US and Pakistan while I hunt for the terrorists I want.

And it need not be that way. Victims from this terror strike were from a variety of countries including US, UK, Israel, Australia… I bet a joint strike targetted toward the locations of the culprits could easily be managed by freezing Pakistan politically with the combined pressure of all these countries. The findings from the investigations are already not hidden from them.

So why in the world does India have to keep absorbing terror attacks only to stop at border lines and nuclear potentials? After all, isn’t passive acceptance a form of encouragement?

The way I look at it, allowing crime is as good as committing it. We have a passive and peaceful image. No one seems to want to shake it, to the extent of victimizing ourselves.

Adopt a handicap and call yourself a cripple. Stop thinking of yourself as a non-violent country when called for, and you empower yourself to stop being defensive and act assertively.

I’m not calling for an all out war, but for whatever it takes ranging from international pressure, to strikes, covert missions to hell, why not, planned disruption of their society to keep the LeT guys busy in their own area – actual terrorist strikes against the terrorist organization, not the country. Send terrorists to blow up their camps, disrupt their training, expose them in their own country, spoil the support they get by making them an embarrassment, trigger conflicts with other terror organizations…… proper state sponsored stuff that we should admit with pride when done. We are a creative country, surely we should be able to come up with options.

If Pakistan wants to trigger a war over damage done to “non-state actors” they can first adopt them and then pay the bill and then we can talk.

The whole point is, we need to act not defend.

More than that, we need to settle this whole issue of who can create the bigger mess – just because we don’t doesn’t mean we can’t.

Update: Added links to the post to reference the proofs and found something interesting. Great minds think alike apparently or maybe they read my post – US sets stage for strikes if Pak does not act

I’ve been following news on the Mumbai terror attacks religiously, and to my surprise, today, there are reports in various UK newspapers that Mumbai police are looking for a woman in a burqa who assisted the terrorists.

All these news pieces agree that the captured terrorist confirmed her presence and that she visited the terrorists staying in the Taj and that she was the local contact. Strange, because this only seems to be appearing in UK newspapers so far. No other country. Not even India, where most other news comes up first from. What’s happening?

Earlier, police had dismissed rumours of a woman seen assisting the terrorists at CST and Cama Hospital. I don’t know what happened of the stories of the shopkeeper who had seen the captured terrorist with a woman.

The news in all the above linked articles agrees on details. So is this a take off on those rumors by the UK media, or do they know something we don’t?

Guess who I am just chatting with? Heh. As though you can. I am chatting with Manisha Bhattacharya – an old friend. When I say, old, I mean it – we used to park our dinosaurs next to each other – that’s how we met.

Time and tests took us away and we lost contact and made contact sporadically. Both of us with our own struggles and demons. When I left Mumbai for Manali, she was in Mumbai. When I returned to Mumbai, she moved to Goa…… and no, its not about either of us forgetting to use deo. It was fate (drumroll)

And fate brings us back together. Today, as we chatted, I discovered that Manisha has discovered the internet like I did, and is a newbie blogger, with the same talent for stomach-clutching-roll-on-the-floor humor that she has in life. Naturally, such things are addictive, and I’m now in the process of convincing her to join me here.

Together, we shall sweep the cobwebs of age and disuse on this blog and hijack it to do ….. well whatever it is that two strong, self-assured women do when they come together – we shall discover that as we go along.

Yeah, its wishful thinking, but how much better can it get? Without wanting to do exciting stuff, we may as well sit there and stagnate.

This is something I’d really want to go and see for myself:

LONDON (AFP) – Potholers have discovered the country’s deepest cave beneath a hillside in central England, using an account by an 18th-century underground explorer, which only recently resurfaced.

“It’s like the inside of a cathedral — just magnificently beautiful,” said Morland Sanders, who was the first non-potholer to abseil down the shaft.

“It’s an incredible place, awesome,” he told The Guardian newspaper Tuesday.

Local potholer Dave Nixon found an underground entrance into the cavern, in the Peak District in Derbyshire, after discovering an account by an obscure 18th-century academic in the University of Cambridge library.

In a paper written in 1793, James Plumtree described a network of caves found after descending into a lead mine near a local fissure known for centuries as the Devil’s Arsehole.

But a rockfall had apparently blocked access to the caverns, and it took potholers three years to hack their way through.

“It wasn’t a matter of stumbling, it was a lot of research and a lot of hard work,” Nixon told the BBC, which has made a television documentary about the discovery.

After having broken through underground it became obvious that the cavern stetched upwards to near the surface, and a man-made shaft was dug from the hillside into the gaping hole.

The new entrance from ground level can be used by abseilers to reach the bottom of the cave, saving a five-hour underground journey.

Titan is nearly 60 metres (200 feet) deeper than the previous record holder, Gaping Gyhll in the Yorkshire Dales in northern England.