7/11 and a lot more...

It seemed so much like that March day in 1993 again - only, this time the targets were not prestigious and important buildings in Mumbai, but the much-acclaimed local train service on which over half a million people commute everyday. Tragedies such as this shake you up completely - there is no way anybody cannot be personally affected by this. My sympathies are with the injured and the families who have lost a dear one in the tragedy; but my heart really goes out to those who still have no clue about their loved ones.

A few stories aired gladden my heart - a brother who went missing found again, a friend found recuperating with a few injuries in a local hospital. Yet there are these other images on the television that overwhelm me: a woman searching for her husband who has been missing since that black Tuesday evening, and another searching for a neighbour whose whereabouts are still not known. Yet another touching image one sees - of a eight or nine year old, with multiple head injuries, lying on a hospital bed - and no family to take care of him. No one knows who he is, and out there somewhere there must be a family worrying itself to death over what has happened to this youngster. At times like this learning that you have lost someone you loved seems so much better than not even knowing the whereabouts of a loved one. With the former, one is at least given a chance to come to terms with the loss, irreplaceable though, and move on in some manner. Knowledge in this sense is actually cathartic. Not knowing where someone you love is - is he/she alive, taken care of, will they ever come back home - not knowing answers to these questions can really be nightmarish. I hope the trauma of many such people would end soon, in some manner.

Television of course has made a lot of things easier - while watching the news (updates and otherwise) on various channels I was stuck by actually how much can really be done via this media - how people who couldn't call others because of networks being jammed could send messages across to the channels and get more information about the loved ones; how channels could be so useful in spreading information about missing persons and also help locate them. I remember in 1993 an uncle of mine was in one of the hotels hit by the bomb blast. It took a while before we could get any information from Bombay itself as to what had happened to him or his mother, who was also with him at that time.

However, I also have a grouse against the channels - I feel it is okay to vie with one another for news itself, but the gory pictures shown on television? Is that really required? I can still hear Rajdeep Sardesai screaming out from the TV set in a screeching voice on Tuesday - "These are live images being brought to you exclusively by CNN-IBN, which was the first channel to break the news of the blasts". And the camera would zoom in to show wreckage of the trains involved in the blast, blood splattered on windows and mangled bodies. Yes, it is important to know what happened, it is important to realize that the tragedy was enormous and a lot of people were affected by it; but I also believe it is important that the dead and injured are respected. And showing mutilated bodies especially in close-up shots is not necessarily a way of respecting the dead.

No, I am not saying that the blow should be softened, but I also don't believe that such blood and gore is really required to make an impact. The enormity of the tragedy comes through - always. How about the days when there was no television to bring tragedies into our drawing rooms? Did we not react as immediately as we do today? Were we not equally affected by, say, the 1984 riots - even though one was miles away from the actual scene itself? In 2002, when the Godhra carnage and subsequent Gujarat riots happened, I was in the US - where the newspapers believe that the world begins and ends in one's backyard. I didn't get to see any gory images of the tragedy, except for the gutted interiors of the infamous coach of the Sabarmati Express - does that mean I was not outraged by what happened, and hurt as well?

I lost my uncle in the bomb blasts that happened in 1993. He happened to be at Hotel Airport Centaur at that time - he was travelling to Hong Kong along with his mother. The plane was late in the night, and he decided it would be good if his mom and he could rest their weary bones before taking off. Unfortunately, that turned out to be rest forever. It was a while before we got any information about their whereabouts (especially because a stopover at Airport Centaur was not part of the original plan), and a long time before we got to know that he and his mother had indeed perished. Despite the agony of having to wait to hear some news, I am sure I wouldn't have wanted this information to reach us or his family through the television, nor would I have wanted to see his maimed body on the idiot box.

And I am sure none of the families of 7/11 victims would want it this way either. Will the channels please wake up and be more mindful of the pain of the families involved? Personal grief can never be for public consumption.