THE 7/11 MUMBAI LOCAL TRAIN BLASTS....a lame perspective

Part 1:"Moombhai"
Now the mumbai blasts that occurred on 11th of July , 2006, had a very varied effect on the average Indian....but for me, a Mumbaikar, nothing could be as 'paradigm-shifting' experience, as this episode was.
Living in mumbai, seeing the changes it went over the years, one starts to breath along with the City. Summers make me stay indoors and carry 2 bottles of water, the rains give me a fresh lease of life, and the winter....oooohhhhhh...Now dats my City....bole toh...MOOMBHAI
And this city had its shares of ups and downs...out of which..i have only witnessed the downs..

Part 2: "The 1993 saga"
The 1993 blasts came when i was a bit to young to comprehend. A small crack, and i thought it was a cracker from the nearby gurudwara, which was a place for the Sikhs to hold their lavish wedding ceremonies and receptions. On my way to school, saw the smoke from behind Sena bhawan. But then, nobody had figured what bloodshed was happening at that place. So just trudged my way to school...and then back home half-day as the News spread like wild fire. Some tales I got to hear from my family members about they lucky escape....and that's about it..
The infamous BOMBAY RIOTS that followed were endured from the safe heaven of my chawl which had all its portals well fortified with strong bamboos and cross braces . Some strange curfew incidents when the army barged straight into our chawl the thuds of their boots resonant with my heavily beating heartbeats. And then, some burning taxis on the way back from school. Tell you, an awesome sight for a school-boy. But apart from that, no bloodshed seen, nor experienced.That's about that.

Part 3: "tragedy strikes again"
Years went by after that, and the clock ticked again. This time it wasn't just an important organ of the city....it was the spine, which was targeted. The gelatin stick bombs assembled in cookers ripped through the trains one by one. Their each bang silencing numerous souls, some of 'em breadwinners, some bright-futured students. The clock ticked and the city bowed down to the plot. Then the clock stopped ticking, networks jammed, and people throughout the city left looking at each other for some directions.
Yet again, i goofed and missed the whole context. Was attending a Youth for Equality meetup of the Dadar-Shivaji park members. The clouds gave way and a sudden downpour, all of us scampering for cover at the already over-crowded Barista. Then the sound of sirens, the fire engines racing past just as the phones started ringing. All of us dismembered in spite of the heavy downpour. Some signals about the scale of the artificial disaster when i was met with hoards of people making their way northwards, outta mumbai, towards the suburbs. Me had a wicked laugh seeing these people undertake their 20+ km journeys on foot. I reached my house. The tube was barking. It was crying hoarse about how Mumbai had gone kaput in the span of 20 minutes. Even the foreign broadcasters trying to predict the scale of the disaster...

Part 4:"my story"
Alright, enough tube gazing, i wanted some action, so i decided to have a look outside our chawl...and the story starts...
A huge mass of people created a human curtain in front of me.Standing just on the sidewalk, but still being unable to see the main road, a few feet in front. The downpour had given way to a gloomy drizzle. And there it was...the sight of over crowded buses, bursting at their seams, but going nowhere, stuck as the cars around them. All the time gazing in amazement, i just wondered about the task ahead - evacuating the millions who were stuck outta their homes, kith n kins waiting for their one call. But this time they had to make the journey without the locals.

Part 5:"vains' and drop-outs turn heroes"
Fellow chawl dwellers too lined the sidewalk, a sight not to be missed. A standing wave of humans, going in just one direction. And after all this, I still hadn't come to terms. I watched my up-to-no-good-all-time-playing-cricket friends serving bottles of water to the crowded buses. The passengers breathing a sigh of relief after every sip. Then the demand overtook the supply. so I decided that it was enough, and it was time for me to show some dignity for labour. so I too jumped onto the bandwagon. I started filling up the bottles and handing them over to those who revelled in running from one bus to the other.. The Kakus of my chawl came again and again, many times over with their handas filled with partly filtered water and emptied it in the tank, whilst Me and a friend filled the bottles...It was fill up -hand over the bottle....fill up -hand over the bottle. During the time, had a ring side view of the happening on the road. My friends,,,,some of whom, I had looked down as vains' and drop-outs had turned into situational heroes, quarrelling with those who went with empty cars, making them pool their cars with now weary-till-drop-dead pedestrians. All the ladies had the preference, then the men could be fitted in..be it fetching wada-pav from the adjoining block, to distributing what the shop-keepers had to give for free...the situational heroes did everything...just for the relation of being a Mumbaikars...a strange kick we get when being conferred with the title...maybe its synonymous with struggle....and after all, life is a struggle..

Part 6: "where are the bottles??"
Two hours into the ordeal, and the bottles were out of stock....we looked at each other...Just then, the cold-drink shop owner, who was overwhelmed by the scene decided to act. and act he did, by ordering his helps to bring in crates after crates of bottles of mineral water...to be handed out for free.....as even he had gauged the situation,,, and it was quite desperate.
So there I was, on the streets again, handing out sealed bottles of mineral water. I was greeted with a varied response, some people still unsure weather to accept the water bottles, some just waiting to have their hands on one.....and some office-going babu bunch...who joked and wondered why i was distributing it for free...a reply in English was enough to silence their ill mannered babuspeak.some of the commuters taking snaps with their mobile camera gadgets to tell the story to their friends.

Part 7:"a downpour from within"
Two more hours passed, and i thought of retiring...just then a commuter asked me..."Arre bhai, ye traffic jam kab khatam hoga??"....I just looked at him and asked..."What traffic jam....there is no traffic jam...the traffics moving"...in comparison with how it was two hours earlier, the buses were moving at a steady pace now.. My body showing signs of fatigue, my legs starting to buckle and trudging away a bit lame, I left the unfinished job to my situational hero friends, and turned my back..I had a glance back, just for a brief, i thought...lemme take back some memories. And the same struggle of getting back home hit me again...I wondered, how can a bunch of goofy-idea-d individuals bring the whole of my city down...A downpour from within was knocking at my eyelids. A shut them up and turned my back.

Part 8:"what the heck!!!"
Just as i cozied up in my bed, i turned to the tube....the news channels showing live footage of the Prime Minister and his Remote control at the very station where the blasts had happened....what the heck!!!. ..%$^&$#%^%$^&%$^e#$%#$%&^$%^#%&*^*(&....
AS the whole of the city is trying to go northwards these citizens thought of holding up the traffic and take a trip southwards just to spring up on every news channel for savouring some publicity....OH THESE NIMCOMPOOPS!