BIG FACTS AND LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES......

Part of the title to this stray thoughts blog owed to Thomas Hardy, the all time famous English Novelist. Apology for stealing his title "Life's little ironies" from his book of the same name.

It's now 8.30 PM (IST). It had been the most distressing day. I was glued to the Tele Vision the whole of yesterday night and today. Professionaly trained terrorists have literally taken taken hold of Mumbai, that commercial hub of India to ransom, chaos and destruction. The images that have been captured and relayed in the news channels are ghastly. My deep condolences to the victims and the bereaved families. Indian Security forces WILL finish off these terrorist efforts. They are the brave face of India. They keep Nation First before anything else. My salutations.
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An anecdote goes like this: A ship is on the wreck. A cyclone is taking its toll. Passengers are running helter-skelter for their life. The cabin crew is doing everything to save the people on board. Crew members are searching every deck of the ship to find out if any passenger is holed up anywhere and to bring them to safety. All most all the passengers have been brought to safe area to evacuate them in life boats to the shore, except one. In the middle deck of the ship, a small boy of ten years was seen playing marble alone by himself. The cabin crew members asked : " Are you mad, playing marbles here ? The ship is on the wreck. Get out and get lost to the upper most deck. You'll be taken to a place of safety." The boy was not moved. Taken aback, one of the crew members forcibly moved the boy through the narrow steps. The boy said : "I know the ship is sinking. But my father is the captain of this ship. He will save us." What measure of hope and faith reposed by one little boy on his father and his captaincy. The point here is that our Security forces are now in the midst of their NATIONAL DUTY and THEY WILL SAVE Mumbaites and India. Hail our soliders !
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At about 7.45 PM (IST) one of the hostages who is of foreign origin and a guest to India , was shown being brought out by our Security services to safety from the Hotel where the terrorists were holed-up. On his reaching the steps of the front yard of the hotel, news reporters of a number of TV channels and News papers swamped him for some hot news about what went on inside the hotel. The foreign guest was heard telling the news men that he had been advised not to divulge any information and that he had promised to go by the advice of the security forces. On being pestered to divulge some information, he stuck to his guns. Then, a reporter of one of the leading National TV News channels, was seen telling the foreign guest thus: " You can stick to your promise...But....er..... Tell us something.... We won't tell anybody". What an antithetical statement ! What journalistc ethics !! What journalistic responsibility !!!
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The behavioural psychology of people of a nation, in times of crises, seems to be in variance with that of another country. Despite the Security forces cordoned off the whole area of Taj Hotel, Mumbai to enable them to carry out their security operations, thousands of Mumbai-living people converged near the place of operation. Of course, they were anxious about the fate of their near and dear ones. But are they not susceptible to cross-fire in the security operations ?
E.M.Forster, the famous English novelist, while drawing the behavioural aspects of the English people in his essay "Notes on the English Character" in a situation involving tense moments, quotes an anecdote:
A few French people and English people were going on a travel in a coach to a hilly side. Half way through the journey, the coach met with an accident and toppled. Many were injured. There were none to help them other than themselves. The French people, over-awed by the severity of the accident, started engaging in crying, breast-beating and became very emotional. However, the English people in the coach, though were also injured in the accident, did not show any expression of emotion and mental disturbance. They displayed cool attitude throughout and started helping the severly wounded to safer places and gave them enough courage to get over the mental pangs of the accident. On reaching back to the place of the start of their journey, the French people became calm and cool. On the other hand, the English people started showing signs of emotional break downs. This behavioural aspect of the English people, according to Forster, depicts their national character. In times of managing crises, they display cool attitude. They would ensure that their emotional imbalace in times of crises would not affect their resolve to get over the crises. When once they get over the crises, they tend to become emotional belatedly for having been weighed all along by the burden of their surpressed emotions. In other words, according to Forster, the display of practical approach in times of crisis is their national character, which got recorded in so many historic incidents of crises. Now coming back to Mumbai, my Mumbai bretheren are very resilient in such terrific situations of terror attacks. In earlier such similar terror attacks in Mumbai, they displayed such heroic behavioural pattern in perceivable manner. Even before the police force could reach a terrorist attacked spot, they could show exceptional courage to help the wounded to places of safety and hospitals and thus made the job of the security forces easy. The only imbalance in their behaviour in such situations, perhaps, is their failure to guague the seriousness of moving closer to such places where the near-threat security operations are under way. They get sensationalized in watching what is going on around as if they are watching a Mumbai masala movie, thus, leaving scope for security hazards. But their resilence to adopt to the post-terrorist attack life is exceptionally great. Hats off to my Mumbai folks.