Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The right way ahead
Of all the articles that appeared on the net, related to the torrential rains that wreaked havoc on Mumbai some time back, this is one article that perfectly echoed my sentiments. Generally, after any such disaster strikes a city, you have articles that primarily discuss the disaster and then there are those that talk about human stories that bob to the surface of the whirlpool of gloom and manage to inspire people around. Then there are articles that have to be of prescriptive nature, ranging from ‘why it happened’ to ‘why it shouldn’t have happened’. Completing the range of articles is those types that glean out the associated spirit of that region and celebrate it. Amongst all these categories of articles, the last category is the most appealing to the general public at large. The reasons are numerous. They do not discuss the disaster, they do not focus on exceptions and nobody likes a post mortem, however appealing it might be.
And when it comes to Mumbai, the resilience of the city is the spirit that has been much celebrated and discussed amongst every nook and corner of the country wide media and the articles that came after this disaster too are no exception. The danger in this type of articles that obviously are trying to uplift the spirits of the people is that they might ironically achieve the opposite. It might lull people into complacency, a complacent feeling based on the foundation of their celebrated spirit. A person will take recourse in the cave of this spirit and refuse to come out to solve the problems that wait outside. Result: Disaster after disaster, nothing changes.
So what is the solution to all this? What can be the right article? Write an article that gleans out the associated spirit, celebrate it and then methodically demolish it, articulating the paradox in celebrating a feeling that’s being perfectly exploited by the politicians to not do anything and finally draft a solution that makes sense.
This article does this perfectly. A must read and one that points the right way ahead.
Of all the articles that appeared on the net, related to the torrential rains that wreaked havoc on Mumbai some time back, this is one article that perfectly echoed my sentiments. Generally, after any such disaster strikes a city, you have articles that primarily discuss the disaster and then there are those that talk about human stories that bob to the surface of the whirlpool of gloom and manage to inspire people around. Then there are articles that have to be of prescriptive nature, ranging from ‘why it happened’ to ‘why it shouldn’t have happened’. Completing the range of articles is those types that glean out the associated spirit of that region and celebrate it. Amongst all these categories of articles, the last category is the most appealing to the general public at large. The reasons are numerous. They do not discuss the disaster, they do not focus on exceptions and nobody likes a post mortem, however appealing it might be.
And when it comes to Mumbai, the resilience of the city is the spirit that has been much celebrated and discussed amongst every nook and corner of the country wide media and the articles that came after this disaster too are no exception. The danger in this type of articles that obviously are trying to uplift the spirits of the people is that they might ironically achieve the opposite. It might lull people into complacency, a complacent feeling based on the foundation of their celebrated spirit. A person will take recourse in the cave of this spirit and refuse to come out to solve the problems that wait outside. Result: Disaster after disaster, nothing changes.
So what is the solution to all this? What can be the right article? Write an article that gleans out the associated spirit, celebrate it and then methodically demolish it, articulating the paradox in celebrating a feeling that’s being perfectly exploited by the politicians to not do anything and finally draft a solution that makes sense.
This article does this perfectly. A must read and one that points the right way ahead.
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