Thoughts on the Mumbai blasts

I didn't want to write about this because I didn't think I would have anything to add. The incidents didn't take place in Pune after all. But after a little prompting, I thought I should atleast note what happened here.

• To give you a glimpse into life here - my parents didn't call me up as soon as they heard that the blasts occurred. It's either because they've become so common, or because of Pune's distance from Mumbai. They were fractionally more concerned when the Raj Thackeray arrest and the subsequent riots happened. Same goes for office safety meetings. We didn't have one. But we did when the Raj Thackeray incident happened.
  
• But most importantly, death and destruction doesn't shock Indians as much as it does the West. The Tsunami shocked all of us when we were in the US, but within an year or so, the word "Tsunami" was being used as a punchline or for fun reasons in song lyrics. I don't think the Mumbai blasts will be used in the same way, but you get the picture.
• The biggest sentiment at work the morning after the attacks was "Oh crap! We'll have to hear more nonsense about the so-called Mumbai spirit. Enough already!" Not fear, or anger but a loathing of the anticipated nuisance.
• I knew it wasn't 9/11 because people at work were working, instead of just sitting in shock or staring at the TV/Internet feeds. Not to imply that no one was watching the news but work didn't come to a standstill.
  
• The big news item a lot of people were watching was the call by one of the terrorists to one of the Indian channels. Again, they were amused by the fact that we had a "call-in" from a terrorist, rather than any negative feelings like anger or sadness.
  
• Personally my first concern was for my manager who was to leave Pune (for good) the very next day and go to New Mexico. (We found out a few days ago that he made it back fine.)
• Politicians are falling down like dominoes. First Shivraj Patil, the extremely incompetent Home Minister who only survived so far because of the blessing of some Italian chick. Then the deputy CM of Maharashtra for saying that "these things happen in big cities". Then the CM of Maharashtra, although I don't know why that one had to go down.
• There's a Muslim guy at work. He's part of a group of about 10 people that go to lunch together every day. He's a good worker, he was a team leader and recently he was even made manager. On the day of the attacks though, at lunch, the tension was palpable. No one was speaking to him and even he was very subdued. Things are better now.