The small incident in Bombay

bade shahron mein aise ek adh hadse hote rahte hain. Woh 5,000 logon ko marne aye the lekin humne kitna kum nuksan hone diya – such small incidents happen in big cities like Bombay – they had come to kill 5000 people but we ensured minimal damage. This from Maharashtra Deputy CM RR Patil.

From the article – but sources close to him said the senior NCP leader did not mean to downplay the terror attack and that the remarks were being quoted “out of context”. Ah, of course.

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Who says the enemy is from outside?

Sources said though the plane carrying NSG Commandos was ready by midnight, it could not take off due to the delayed arrival of a VIP, who wanted to accompany them to Mumbai, at the Delhi airport. Worse, the Commandos had to wait for a vehicle at the Mumbai airport until morning.

Demoralised DF doesn’t even ask why intelligence failed

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A reassuringly sane voice in all this – This is not India’s 9/11 – Ingrid Srinath in Citizens for Peace.

Another sane voice I was glad to hear – Shobha De on TV saying, do not talk about Mumbai’s spirit – we will not be resilient any longer… And ticking off Jayanthi Natarajan who brought up “Sonia madam’s sacrifice” – it is not the time to get hysterical – politicians need to answer…. Go, Shobha!

In the middle of all this, we had Kabir Bedi and Leander Paes, among others airing their views on the attacks. Why?

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Reading about the way Taj employees escorted guests and hostages to safety, and hearing accounts of how they served sandwiches and canapes to keep morale up, I keep thinking of the Titanic band that played on as the ship sank… What makes people take pride in what can at best be only a routine, even boring job in normal times?