People died.
Millions rendered homeless.
Life comes to a standstill.
Billions of dollars of damage.
And all that people can think of, is to forward emails saying how Mumbai is better than New Orleans. Or, how India is better than the US. Or, how Mumbaikars are resilient. I always wondered about "the resilience of Mumbaikars" bit. Having been in Mumbai, and having spent a night outside home during those intense rains, and having walked substantial distances in the rain, I always found the "resilience" bit quite ironic. "Resilience" from whatever I saw then, was a sad state of helplessness. But well, may be I wasnt just appreciative enough.
That apart, I quite often end up blaming myself for not being "patriotic", like some of these unabashedly patriotic and proud Indians who originate mails of this sort. Mails that compare a "a hurricane blowing at 100 kmph" with "intense heavy rains that lasted a day". Mails that ask you to use Nirma over Ariel. Mails that urge you to be Indian and buy Indian. Mails that claim in all Capital letters that the problem with the Indian Trade balance is due to my buying a P&G shampoo over a Chik shampoo.
Goddammit. Iam tired. If this is what being "patriotic" is all about, then I dont give a damn.
And for God's sake please dont send me these forwards.
Millions rendered homeless.
Life comes to a standstill.
Billions of dollars of damage.
And all that people can think of, is to forward emails saying how Mumbai is better than New Orleans. Or, how India is better than the US. Or, how Mumbaikars are resilient. I always wondered about "the resilience of Mumbaikars" bit. Having been in Mumbai, and having spent a night outside home during those intense rains, and having walked substantial distances in the rain, I always found the "resilience" bit quite ironic. "Resilience" from whatever I saw then, was a sad state of helplessness. But well, may be I wasnt just appreciative enough.
That apart, I quite often end up blaming myself for not being "patriotic", like some of these unabashedly patriotic and proud Indians who originate mails of this sort. Mails that compare a "a hurricane blowing at 100 kmph" with "intense heavy rains that lasted a day". Mails that ask you to use Nirma over Ariel. Mails that urge you to be Indian and buy Indian. Mails that claim in all Capital letters that the problem with the Indian Trade balance is due to my buying a P&G shampoo over a Chik shampoo.
Goddammit. Iam tired. If this is what being "patriotic" is all about, then I dont give a damn.
And for God's sake please dont send me these forwards.
There's a difference between helping your fellow countryman and buying a P&G product. Ppl in NOLA "DUMPED" the helpless and it wasn't the case in the Mumbai floods.
As for the "lame" forwards, don't read them.
all this 'resilience'stuff arises out of the need for people to feel good about themselves.
If you remember, the whole of the US patted itself on the back on their reaction to the 9/11 tourist attacks and said how efficient their public safety systems were and so on...people across the world are not all that different.
am not even sure that resilience is such a good thing..
Haha atleast we agree on something. You must see the latest forward asking us not to fill our gas tanks on 22nd Sep.
Gandhi
Very well said. I totally agree with you. Disasters and grave yards are hardly the right grounds to play this comparison game. Why compare in the first place? Why do we need to feel superior to the Americans? Is our sense of pride so badly hurt that we need to look at such natural disasters to feel good about ourselves? And why restrict ourselves to floods and hurricanes? Why don't they do a comparison on religious violence between the two cities and post the statistics on number of innocents killed? And days and months it took the police to restore peace?
About the number of people who reported to work in Mumbai the day after the rains, well the number was so high because most of them never went home the previous night!!
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