Mumbai Blast - Searching for Answers!

(This post has been written by my good friend Ramya)

Finally sitting down to deliver on my long overdue promise to write something on Pointy’s blog. And I waited this long partly because like everyone else I lead an action packed life which involves waking up in the morning, rushing to work, grabbing dinner, calling it a night and topping up the weekends with a few extra hours of sleep, catching some latest movie releases and complaining to friends about where life and everything else is headed in general. Does this sound familiar to the action packed life that any of you lead? If you reconnect with my second line now- the other partly is because all those inspirational speeches that evolve in my head as I read the papers during my daily commute, at best get reduced to a smattering of words pulled out from the GRE word list when I finally try to put them on written medium. (No prizes for guessing!!! I am no Jhumpa Lahiri). But I thought if events like the Mumbai Siege don’t get me to ask a few questions and (hopefully) get some answers nothing ever will.

My friend and junior from KGP, Khushboo Jha lost her fiancé (who was also my junior although I didn’t know him personally) in the attack at Leopold's cafe - so if things weren't bad enough already, now I have a face to put to it all.

Echoing the need for a political revamp in the country and touching upon the need for young, dynamic, honest, intelligent and upright leaders (as reflected in Aamir Khan’s blog) I want to say I know lots of people who may be ready to face up to the challenge. At the risk of sounding cliché, our circle of friends is supposed to contain the intelligentsia and the future entrepreneurs of India. This infers we have had a plethora of opportunity and resources at our disposal. It also infers we have survived in a rather competitive professional and perhaps personal environment till now. We are probably the best placed of all the common men and women that can rise to the occasion. Let’s just say there are enough amongst us who should not be afraid to at least make an attempt. But where do such highly motivated individuals go? How do you take the first step? Who do you talk to? If you are a professional jumping careers how do you convince people to take you seriously? And I mean not going from being an actor who has had the advantage of his face plastered on the walls and billboards in every village and town to a politician but someone like a banker or a scientist wanting to move into politics? Common sense dictates strong participation and involvement in the community and a good network are good places to begin. I can think of many of us who already do this then what are we missing? Would we be missing less if we were all human rights lawyers in which case we’d be mixing professional and personal interests and therefore have more visible community-based brownie points? As for the network, I shudder at the thought of that spiralling back to our same doddering, sick old politicians. Who is going to give me the confidence that not being from an illustrious political family will not be seen as a serious set back? I know politics is a dirty game, but if I am able and willing to work hard, will the system work with me? My scepticism sounds naïve I know. But isn’t this what’s stopping a lot of us from walking out the door of Mckinsey and walking into the Lok Sabha? Of course, the nosedive in income notwithstanding!!!!!

On a different note and because of its relevance in today’s world, combating terrorism, like everything else in this world has to come with the buzz word ‘sustainability’. And here’s how- Having specialized in Energy and doing what I do, I have decided Energy Independence and Energy Security should be made a priority for the government and a household term in India just like it is in the US or UK. Of the few things our government does correctly I see the nuclear deal as a step in the right direction. If all those EIA projections are right, we are going to be paying one hell of a price in the next 15-20 years for our own destruction. Meaning, the fraction of the oil money to the Middle East that can trickle down to the wrong hands! Where I had kept an open mind on the matter earlier, in the light of the Mumbai incidents I am wary of our gas deal with Iran because right now my mindset is ‘guilty until proven innocent’ rather than the other way round. Looking into the future, as I seek out professional opportunities if I work to meet the challenge that Vilas Muttemwar outlined, then this time I will have mixed work with pleasure!!!

“We have huge resources of renewable energy in the country. To begin with we have a potential of five trillion megawatts of solar energy, 70,000 megawatts of wind energy and more than two lakh [200,000] megawatts of hydrogen energy. We are now tapping this potential to meet our requirements." Asked by BBC Hindi why resources of renewable energy were not gaining popularity in the country, the Minister replied: "There is a widespread impression that usage of renewable resources of energy is less cost effective in comparison to the conventional resources”. Rest of this at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/02_february/13/bbchindi.shtml.

With this thought lingering around my head from time to time, I am not very proud of the fact that it took a tragic event like this for me to make up my resolve. Spreading awareness on Energy Security will be top on my agenda.

I am a firm believer in women’s empowerment (not surprising considering I am a woman) All those with me on the issue of women’s liberty, we need to go full bore to help Muslim women find their voice. There are some interesting cases in the U.K where a mother was able to revert back a boy who had joined a terror training camp to normalcy. Boys will be boys, and coming from IIT I know how twisted their brains can get between the ages of 18 and 21. Little wonder why these boys are caught at this age and fed the wrong sentiments. A strong mother figure can influence them to stay on the right track. The doctrines I preach are not easy or will not happen anytime soon. But sustainability was never synonymous to quick-fix. There maybe many of you out there, who disagree, please do- that’s the only way we can be sure we haven’t left any stone unturned.

As for getting politically astute, time will tell. Although I am one for lofty ambitions, I need to make sure I can sustain this feeling of desperate need for a political overhaul long after the over-sensationalized media coverage of the Mumbai attacks have stopped. But I feel if enough of us keep an open mind about politics at least a handful of us are bound to stride into it. The stuff I am saying is not exactly ‘light bulb flash in the head’ material. It is stuff that even an average person calls ‘all too obvious’. But then which of these obvious things have we done right before? If enough graduates from Harvard and MIT hadn’t gone into politics as did into Google and Goldman Sachs, U.S politics wouldn’t have been as exhilarating as it is today. Hell, how on earth are we to become the world’s next super-power 10 years after China (according to popular belief) if our private sector keeps drifting away from our public sector labelling them a comedy of errors? On the contrary I would say considering how the private sector has led practically all the development in our country, maybe we should encourage a new form of venture capitalism that focuses on ‘able leaders’. The return on their investment will be a strong government. Follow the Obamas of the world.

For now, campaigns like ‘Jaago Re’ www.jaagore.com which is encouraging our country's Gen X to get out there and vote - is a promising start.We are the generation that’s seen snail mail go to email, arrange marriages turn to love marriages, paanwalas carry mobile phones and lardy, muffin-top trotting Bollywood actresses turn steaming sizzlers- nothing is impossible for us!!!!!!!

I’ll stop for now or else Pointy won’t let me hog more of his blog space next time.