"Chennai now has a different kind of water problem: the problem of plenty." - 'The Hindu' said. They had to say this bcos Chennai always had the thirst for water from its birth and any amount of water would just be vapour in quite some time. But this seems really plenty. Plenty plenty down the road and nothing conserved!
Burning Taj
I'm still watching the TV screen on my right. My TV went off only when the power went off - in the last 48+ hours. To reiterate the incidents, which you too would have come across on your screens, is boring. But I really felt the need to write this one out at least to relieve some pressure off me. Now, the net is flooded with blogs and images of the War on Mumbai. Its really astounding to know that all bloggers were active blogging all day and nite for the last 50 hours now. I've been through many of those and its really gives me a feeling of unity when most of them share their feelings and have almost the same feelings. Many bloggers were active throughout feeding posts every minute and even every second sharing information. Kudos to all of them. And by now, Flickr is flooded, like the waters in Chennai, with images of Mumbai and the Taj in various stages of operation and in various angles. Wonder so many of them were out there amidst the chaos picturing it.
The Taj Hotel is a real monument for me, though I've visualized it only through photographs in magazines, images on television, and so. It cant be ruined to this form. No wonder they call it the worst attack on India.
Most news channels took a break only after 48 hours of continued live telecast and reporting. Maybe its survival and business for them, but they could do everything to be informative and give people more information on the situation around and especially for those who were in their homes in Mumbai knowing nothing about the situation outside. But did they do the right thing? This is the news that shook the nation and the world for sure.
But the bad news is that they din't have any other news until now (60 hours past since attack began). Everyone just forgot Chennai covering only Mumbai. Its the 6th consecutive day its raining in Chennai and the whole city flooded. Most of the state of Tamil Nadu is attacked by the cyclone "Nisha," which has claimed some lives and too many losses. Schools and colleges remain closed for the 3rd consecutive day and most to reopen on Dec 1. Only local news channels took effort to show them amidst the Mumbai terror. The value of a human life is the same whether attacked by a terrorist or a cyclone. But not to blame it on the channels anyway, bcos its an issue of national integrity and they have done the best to stay connected - I could find reporters risking their lives, lying flat on the ground, stil reporting every second of the incident. But the fact that Chennai suffered and is suffering a lot is still unnoticed. Instead of repeating the whole scenes that happened right on day 1, they could have gone further with other news at least once in a day, which has not been reported until 3 days now.
There still isn't power supply in most areas of Chennai and people aren't much aware of the situation around them and the floods and then how of Mumbai. It must also be for the first time that a former Prime Minister's death went unnoticed. The former PM's death news just scrolled beneath without anyone reading a word about it.
This is not a blog for the channels. The topic just flew off from me this way, which I dint expect.
Image from Flickr
1 comment:
good points! i never knew about the flood in chennai, even after all these days. maybe on a larger perspective, it wasn't deemed important by the media.
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