Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tale of 2 cities

We Indians had our own share of "Tale of 2 cities" during the turmoil which happened over the last few days( 4 days to be precise). It all began on the fateful date of 26th Nov when some terrorists waged a war against the financial capital of the country. About a 1000 kms away, another metro, considered one of the lifelines was preparing itself for the nature's fury. If the terrorists were from Pakistan, the cyclone "Nisha" came from the Bay of Bengal, the credit for the christening goes to East Pakistan(Bangladesh). The battle was between the terrorists and the army,ATS,NSG,Police in Mumbai while in Chennai after 2 days of continous rain in Chennai, it was a battle between the Sun and the clouds with each playing hide and seek with Chennaite's life for another couple of days. It can only be called irony that both these battles began and ended on the same day. The precision with which the terrorists had planned the events and the fury of the nature during the rains over Chennai are unparallel and lets sincerely pray that it is not repeated in future. In both of the cases, the common man could be felt wanting for more in terms of the relief measures and the counter-offensive against the terrorists. One thing is for sure, both the cities were not at all prepared for this kind of day. Perhaps we need to do some more introspection before claming about 7.5% growth in GDP and Chandrayaan success. We need to get the basics right.