Posts from — August 2003

Many many happy returns of the day to Gaurav!! :-)

If ever there was a birthday wish worth calling cute, this has to be it!! ;-)

Blast Updates:

Police hunting for the ‘family’ of four.

Two men in jeans accompanied by a woman and a child are the main suspects in yesterday twin blasts that killed 49 people, injured 161 and struck terror in the heart of an already jumpy city.

But Shivnarayan Pandey, driver of taxi, numbered MH-02-R-2007, that was used in the Gateway blast, had apparently already sold his taxi seven months ago, according to his relatives. Pandey was supposed to be working in a private company as a driver. Why then was he driving that taxi??

And then… why was a taxi allowed to park in a MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) pay-and-park facility? Taxis aren’t allowed to park in these pay-and-park area operated by the BMC.

The police seem to be a confused lot. While Police commissioner, R S Sharma, refused to divulge the names of organizations that may have been behind yesterday’s blasts, Joint Commissioner, Dr. Satyapal Singh openly said, “These blasts are the work of Lashkar-e-Taiba and SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India.“

The people of Mumbai have, as always, bounced right back, refusing to be cowed down. Whether this is resilience or apathy… one thing is certain. The spirit that keeps Mumbai ticking has not died down. An example of that resilience is the fact that the Sensex, which plumetted 120 points during the day yesterday, after the news of the blasts broke… has bounced back by regaining most of the lost ground. The sensex was 108 points up from yesterday’s close at the time I posted this entry.

As a mark of condolence for those who’ve suffered in the blast, all of us at my workplace shall observe a minute of silence at 3 PM IST.

There have been four blasts in Mumbai [see updates below for the latest news]. Looks like the cowardly bastards who have no balls to come out into the open have struck again! :-(

Update: It seems the blasts happened just minutes after it was disclosed that the ASI report indicates that there existed a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Interesting!!

Update No. 2: The police now say that there were in fact only two blasts in the city today… not 4 as earlier reported. Strange!

Update No. 3: After intial reports that about 6 to 10 people had died in the blasts, I just refreshed the page and was shocked to see that the official figures put the number of dead at 42 and the number of injured at over 150!!!

The blasts have happened in South Mumbai this time. If the last few blasts were aimed at creating a sense of fear and panic among the common people of Mumbai (by targetting public transport like trains and buses), I’m afraid the target this time around seems to be sending a forceful message to the Government that the terrorists are here.. right at their doorsteps…. and they aren’t afraid of anything. Well, at least the Gateway of India blast was definitely to achieve this particular aim. Reports indicate that it was a very powerful blast. Click here for an image of the mangled remains of a car from the parking lot, near the Gateway, in which this blast occurred.

The second blast occurred in the crowded locality of Zaveri Bazar in Kalbadevi which is a predominantly Gujarati locality. And I don’t think this is a co-incidence. Moreover, these blasts in South Mumbai also aim to target the financial nerve centre of the metropolis which is not far away from the scene of these blasts. Not since the infamous Bombay Blasts 10 years ago, has the south of Mumbai been singed by the flames of terrorism.

It’s terrible!!

Who is to blame for these incidents? Terrorists??… “Foreign (Pakistani) Hand”??… the government??… the police??

What are your thoughts?

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Well ok… I had to eat my words about India losing against the in-form Pakistani side in their Champions Trophy match yesterday. But, given the kind of win that India pulled off against their traditional rivals, I’ll gladly eat my words!!

I reached home, after office, to find my excited dad at the door. He told me excitedly that it was 4-4 with 15 minutes to go in the second half. I flung my bag and sat in front of the TV.

And, it was wonderful!! … two superb backhand flicks by Gagan Ajit Singh gave India an almost unassailable lead. And then Dhanraj Pillay’s brilliant run down the right flank ended in the 7th goal by Deepak Thakur. Pakistan were dead and buried by that time. And India had scored 5 goals in the second half to Pakistan’s 1. It was a famous win!! I was almost whooping with excitement as goals rained.

And now today… Australia have thrashed Argentina 8-3. This means that India is still in the contention for a medal. India will (I think) play Pakistan again to decide the bronze medal winner. Now that… is a match to watch!!

But just to take some wind out of the sails, I would like to remind that the game yesterday (Ind V Pak) was such a brilliant game just because it had two Asian teams playing the Asian flavour of the game i.e. free flowing hockey. Tight man-marking was conspicuous by its absence. This essentially allowed the teams to play freely… which is why we had piercing runs by the forwards of both the teams… and hence the flurry of goals. The Europeans play a different kind of game. They restrict the free movement of players that the Asians love so much. This results in stifling the Indians who then start going in for long passes and overhead balls… which leads nowhere and turns the possession over to the opposing team.

The Indian team, the captain and the coach included, should be well-advised not to let the win go to their heads. They should instead grab at this sliver of a chance to salvage a medal out of this Champions Trophy by repeating the tough-as-nails performance against Pakistan when they meet the next time around in the tournament.