The state of the city scares me a bit, I am a bit worried, how fragile we have become that the scare of an invisible and quite non – existent monster can drive us out of our wits. I had decided that I would not validate this fear by writing about it on a public forum, or speak about it otherwise. The sheer ignorance of my brethren has made me very afraid.
It is a norm that people as a group are always foolish, but I thought that we as a people were different. All right, I have to admit, I was hoping that we were a cut apart, guess we are not. What will become of us when we are faced with a devastating blow? What will we do then? Throw ourselves of buildings, give our children poison?
Have we desensitized ourselves from the real tragedies and calamities that when something such as the Swine Flu surfaces, we scramble for cover. Leptospirosis, Dengue, Malaria take the lives of hundreds each year. It is offered a two – column story on the third page. Yet open gutters and utter disregard for hygiene and cleanliness are rampant. Deaths caused due to these diseases in Mumbai are staggering, ask anybody these figures and we would not know them.
Mumbai is not strong, it is not resilient, it is plain stupid and scared shitless.
We have neither the capacity to withstand a real attack, or any general threat….we are just pigeons looking for a warm place to nest and the next attractive mate. Anytime there is a perceived threat we flutter off. Another similarity to pigeons is the short memory, we do not remember the various bombings that happened over the last two years, we do not have a clue where they happened, nobody even cares about the lives lost just this November. The Mumbaikar is losing his sheen, he is becoming a callous runt of a person, devoid of humanity and feeling.
“A city full of people, not a soul around”
Yet there is hope; we wouldn’t be humans without it now right? There are a few even to this day, who keep their heads held high, use rationale and reason to live, don’t bow down to statistics and big typefaces. Live each day as any other, die a little each day to the machine that is the city. But you can be sure that you will see the resilience in their uncovered faces. For if the city can’t kill them, swine flu will not.
