Is Mumbai attack India's Sept.11?

Following the Mumbai attack I am seeing a blind fury against politicians in blogs. If any reaction is too extreme I am skeptical about the utility of the response. Because its going to be short lasting. Before Mumbai attack was everything going fine in India? Terrorist attacks occurred before also. So why we were not in a blogging frenzy in the intervening period?

Blasts in Assam were around 1 month back. Death toll of 66 or more. Why it didn’t evoke such a reaction as now? Because it was local factions so that it doesn’t threaten us? Or because north east has been always a far off frontier for us? May be we are not sure such a place even exists in India.

What all makes Mumbai attack different from previous terrorist attacks? Definitely the scope and organisation. But do we need it to realise that we are not safe ? We know it for decades! Does this ear mark a new era of our intelligence agency like it did for US? I don’t think so. It cant happen just overnight because politicians are very worked up today. Because good intelligence requires painstaking patience and time. It would take years to infiltrate an organisation. In the scenario of hundreds of parallel cells for every 100 attempts you deflect there will be one successful attempt.
Then why doesn’t it happen in US? Definitely at the cost of privacy and human rights. And fat money also. I know I know you are ready to give all that up. But thank god its not going to happen in India just because you are all worked up. Because its going to be a Faustian bargain.
So what can we really do at this juncture? The greatest thing will be not to have knee jerk reactions. Think about it. Did the terrorists really think that after this attack India will abdicate Kashmir? They need to make the moderate muslim population in India feel vulnerable.What they need is some sharp reactions from the right wing so that the recruitment queues to their cells will fatten. So that they don’t have to come in boats from Pakistan to do what they need to do.

Do you have a script?

If you are genuinely interested in writing screenplays and have a completed one, check this out.

The iron curtain

Some questions hang around uneasily in the aftermath of the Mumbai mayhem. It doesn’t help that we are forced to swallow any information handed over by the officials. There is no option of cross checking.
1) Its said that an attempt of killing 5000 has been foiled. But what exactly has been the plan for the same? Shooting at the crowd and throwing grenades at multiple sites appears to be too wishy washy a plan for doing that.
2) Terrorists held the hotels for at least a day. They are said to have a roomful of RDX. What prevented them from using it?
3) From the account of military it was not a suicidal mission. There was an escape plan involving bargaining with the hostages. Consider the elaborate preparations that had gone in in the form of video coverage including the staff quarters inside the taj hotel. Didn’t a possibility of a military operation cross their minds? Didn’t they have a plan for that? What was the strategy employed by the military to foil such a plan? (Other than storming in disregarding the body count of hostages)
4) It was said at one point that around 6 hostages were killed out of 66 in one hotel during the military operation. What prevented the terrorists from causing a higher casualty among the hostages? That too considering that the military operation was going on for around 1-2 days? Is someone being too boastful regarding the casualties vs saved hostages?

This may not be the right time to be skeptical. But sometimes devil is in the details.

Twenty 20

I know, I know. Nothing is a crime if it makes money in the box office.
Poor villains. They have not been able to beat a single superstar in previous movies. What can they do against a handful of them?

Odyssey

Can you imagine what the feeling will be like if someone is dragging himself on without knowing the latitude and longitude? Not knowing whether one will survive the next storm of uncertainities lurking in the horizon? Awaiting another ambush of pirates of different denominations? Expecting another mutiny from within?
Were you thinking about Christopher Columbus?
Actually I was talking about analysing the statistical data for my doctoral thesis.

Quantum of solace

Well well well. Bond seems to have metamorphosised into dirty Harry and Bourne rolled into one. But I am not complaining any more. Only if they would hold the camera steady (neither shaken nor stirred) when he runs amok.
If Bond can turn rogue, scriptwriter can turn anti-imperialist also. Imagine a British foreign minister saying, 'if we don’t do business with villains, we wont have anyone left to do business with' in a Bond movie. In a Bond movie!

And what about CIA operatives agreeing to recognise a despot if he topples the govt. of Bolivia so that they can have a piece of oil? Joke is on the colonial cousins. Agreed. Still Britain and US are supposed to be allies isn't it?
Hey Paul Haggis, before you get too serious about all this I will tell a story that will make a good Bond movie. The ideal Bond movie.
Bond fights against the villain with radioactive eyeballs and titanium toes who owns a beautiful palace in amazon jungle. He is smuggling plutonium for a warhead to destroy the moon so that Jupiter's orbit will be shifted nearer and he can set up a business dynasty in Jupiter. But if Bond has to get to him, the only key is a beautiful girl who is a mistress to an Italian don…
Now figure out the rest. It will be a blockbuster.
And don’t forget to send the check .

All the director's men

Chatted with a friend today. He is working on a script for RGV right now. I was intrigued to know that most of the writers working for RGV didn’t give a shit about standard teachings about structure and format. Even RGV went in a level of ' what interesting thing can happen next .' That’s all. No plot points, three acts and other mumbo jumbo. I think that may be its hurting him not giving attention to the mumbo jumbo. Look at his recent films. The sarkar series, or the numerous 'darna' variants. Especially the sarkar movies are just strings of events with no discernible order. What I mean is that it is possible to remove half the running time without injuring the basic plot.
What's most grevious about the picture I get about the different movie factories is that writing is done by sidekicks and flattery spewers but not by genuine talent. Funny that still they think putting 2 crore instead of 1 crore in a song or fight sequence will make it a better movie.