I am not proud of being Indian! But am afriad of it!

Almost everyone has an opinion and solution to the current terrorist activity in Mumbai. Just to remind you, I am talking about the attack happened during last week of November, lasted 3 days and there were gun battle at various locations in Mumbai. I know this is needed, as a week from now, no one will remember what happened, we will have other multiple, and maybe more deadlier attacks to talk about.

So, if you ask me, do I have an opinion? Yes, I do, but I don't think it matters. What does an ordinary citizen of India can do in this situation? I can hide I guess. But when they are coming inside the house, I don't think hiding is an option now. What will anyone do in such situation? We can not fight it, and we don't have a govt who can fight it. Our leaders will repeat the same condolence messages, packed with some "guilty will be punished" comments and some encouragement messages like "The spirit of people of India" and life will go on like it was. All of us who are not yet caught in any of these attacks, may ask for vengeance, attack on Pakistan, drastic measures by govt to tackle it and keep it a regular topic for gossiping for a week of so. And those who lost their near and dear ones will be deep in sorrow for maybe few months, and crawl back to the terms of life, and start adjusting with life. But life goes on. Life goes on after earth quack, life goes on after Tsunami, life goes on after a terrorist attack, life goes on! Its not the spirit of any city, which brings the city back on track, its the circle of life, and the universal truth of "Life Goes On"!

Don't fool yourself, because I am not fooling myself. I accept that I am not proud of being Indian, I am afraid of it. I can not venture out in night, I can not go to any tourist place, I can not travel to any other city by any mode of transport, I can not trust anyone on street! Its not that I am not doing it, I go to office, my kids go to school, wife goes to market, we go to shopping mall or central market for shopping, I travel by air or train from time to time, my wife also travel without me, with kids by train or air. But we all do these, still afraid, and forced to do, because Life has to go on! We have a life to live! We just can not sit at home, locking ourselves inside. We want to, but we just can not afford it. I have to work, kids has to study, we need vegetables and other stuffs from market. So, we have to drag ourselves out of home, and get back to normal routine. I can feel the same urge of all the people who are out on street after any attack, and our politicians call it "The spirit of being Indian or Spirit of Mumbai or Spirit of Delhi etc etc..."

This is not the Spirit of Indians, this is the need of being Indian, that one must go out, face the terror, to earn your livelihood. Today, these terror attacks are part of our daily life, we just read the news like any other road accident news. Discuss it for some time with friends, and move on. But that is what we are showing outside, we all are very much afraid inside, and our way of showing these fears is showing anger, and helplessness. We can not bring any change or do anything about it, so we can just learn to live with it. I am still trying to adjust to my fear of being Indian and living in India, hope you all will also learn it soon.

Its not that I think of this situation as completely hopeless. Don't get me wrong, there are many ways to fix this terrorism problem, I do have few suggestions, but I don't see anything happening, and till something happens, we are still living in danger of being the next victim.

I do want to give my way of solving this problem in the post, otherwise you may think that I don't see any hope.... In my opinion, we need to do the following to tackle this problem:

• Capital punishment to all who are involve in terrorism, not just who fire the bullet, or plant the bomb, but even a small accomplish should only be given capital punishment, and nothing less. Also, no appeal for such cases, single court and final verdict. The verdict should only be Guilty or Not guilty, as there is only one punishment for guilty.

• Secure our borders, don't let anyone enter our boarders. Just shoot to kill, don't capture anyone entering the country illegally, kill them on spot! You may kill some innocent person, but secure our boarder.

• Cut off all diplomatic relations with Pakistan. Don't do any trade, sports anything! Close down our offices, no relations till this terrorist problem is resolved and Pakistan hand over all the wanted criminals. I know Pakistan can never handover all the criminals to us, but that will also be the reason for keeping Pakistan away and not starting the relationship again with Pakistan.

• Spot the Indus water supply to Pakistan, and force it to resolve all the problems before they get any water!There are other such pressure we can put on Pakistan forcing them to take action! We should do it!
  

I don't want to write more on an issue which I think is the most widely discussed and written about issue today, just wanted to express my fear and anger towards it! I am in anger, in fear, and worried about what kind of society we are giving to our children. I have two kids, 10 and 8 years old, I have not let them watch any violent movie so far, and they are grown only on cartoons or family movies. But, how can I prevent the real violence in their life? I am an Indian, and living in fear for the safety of myself, my family and friends is part of being Indian living in India! So, I am not proud of being Indian, I am afraid of it!