What Changed on Thursday
Last thursday, I woke up to the sound of a helicopter hovering above my neighbourhood. At first, I thought it was probably part of the security detail for a celebration near the tower or something. As I was in the shower I suddenly realised why the helicopter was there. It was thursday, and London had seen two terror attacks in two weeks over the last two thursdays. The city was scared, and this was the government's way of saying that they were there. Out on the streets and around the station, I could see a muted yet potent police presence everywhere.
A lot of things have changed in London since that fateful day when 56 people died. The high street shops are doing even worse than they were earlier because people are too scared to go out on weekends. The traffic jam on the road in front of my apartment building is heavier than it used to be despite an 8 pound congestion charge. Railway stations have suddenly become microcosms of the city, reflecting in minute detail what goes on in the minds of Londoners everyday. People are suspicious of everything and everyone.
In the midst of all this, I am brown, wear a turban (although I am not a Muslim) and carry a laptop bag that looks suspiciously like a rucksack. You would think that I would be the prime candidate for a stop and search or racial abuse. Significantly however, none of these things has happened to me yet. Despite this however, I have changed some things to compensate for these terrible times.
Nowadays, whenever I walk into a train station, I tend to take the ear plugs of my music player out of my ears till I board the train. The reason I do this is because there are almost always police men/women posted at the entrances to stations and I remember what happened to the last man who didn't stop when the police told him to do so. When I close my bag, I make sure none of the wires from my laptop charger are sticking out of it. I don't carry a bag on the tube anymore.
Some of these changes are conscious decisions, others are not. I feel that if I can make my fellow humans feel a bit more safe by changing somethings about myself, maybe I should. I don't intend to pass judgement on Londoners or even on the perpetrators of those heinous atrocities, simply because I do not understand either side well enough. But I do know that these strange events will not just become part of history. I do know that things like this will probably recur around the world until all of us start to understand each other a bit better.
The way I see it, the only other way around this problem is to cut the whole world into neat little pieces and isolate these pieces from one another. Unfortunately, recent political events indicate that that is already beginning to happen. But this is not the long term solution. People of the world need to throw out governments that do not respect public opinion.
A lot of things have changed in London since that fateful day when 56 people died. The high street shops are doing even worse than they were earlier because people are too scared to go out on weekends. The traffic jam on the road in front of my apartment building is heavier than it used to be despite an 8 pound congestion charge. Railway stations have suddenly become microcosms of the city, reflecting in minute detail what goes on in the minds of Londoners everyday. People are suspicious of everything and everyone.
In the midst of all this, I am brown, wear a turban (although I am not a Muslim) and carry a laptop bag that looks suspiciously like a rucksack. You would think that I would be the prime candidate for a stop and search or racial abuse. Significantly however, none of these things has happened to me yet. Despite this however, I have changed some things to compensate for these terrible times.
Nowadays, whenever I walk into a train station, I tend to take the ear plugs of my music player out of my ears till I board the train. The reason I do this is because there are almost always police men/women posted at the entrances to stations and I remember what happened to the last man who didn't stop when the police told him to do so. When I close my bag, I make sure none of the wires from my laptop charger are sticking out of it. I don't carry a bag on the tube anymore.
Some of these changes are conscious decisions, others are not. I feel that if I can make my fellow humans feel a bit more safe by changing somethings about myself, maybe I should. I don't intend to pass judgement on Londoners or even on the perpetrators of those heinous atrocities, simply because I do not understand either side well enough. But I do know that these strange events will not just become part of history. I do know that things like this will probably recur around the world until all of us start to understand each other a bit better.
The way I see it, the only other way around this problem is to cut the whole world into neat little pieces and isolate these pieces from one another. Unfortunately, recent political events indicate that that is already beginning to happen. But this is not the long term solution. People of the world need to throw out governments that do not respect public opinion.
posted by Arun at 3:31 PM
2 Comments:
Never realized (or rather thought) that such incidents could require normal people to change little things about them. Interesting thing is that being the kind of people we are, we tend to take it all in our stride and make it a part of our daily routine. We don’t even mind it after a while.
That is true. But you have to realize that unlike Delhi, London hasn't seen any major terrorist incidents in a while. Come to think of it though, I have seen the same thing happen in Delhi too, although on a different level. I remember the time when Rajiv Gandhi was blown up. There were some sort of celebrations scheduled at a South Indian temple close to where I lived. Although the temple still held the event, practically nobody turned up. Societies, especially civil societies are fragile structures forever teetering on the edge of ugliness.
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