In God's hands
Hundreds of devouts throng to temples across India for every festival big or small. They believe in and bow before the supreme power of God. So, shouldn't their God preferentially protect them for being so devout?
Why should anyone raise a cry against the mere mortal temple administrators for not providing for safe conduit or emergency exits? After all the expenditure on silk wear and gold jewelry for the idols and after accounting for the expense of bathing them in milk and honey, it is simply unreasonable to expect that the authorities should also have to spend on building planning with safe exits and emergency plans. Why unnecessarily burden the police force by asking them to streamline the expected crowds when there is God to take care fo everyone?
I mean com'on. This is not the first time a stampede has happened, is it? Why raise a hue and cry about it? It's God's will and any actions of us mere mortals to prevent by excercising some common sense care would have certainly been rendered impotent. As proper devouts, we should just submit to it.
Why should anyone raise a cry against the mere mortal temple administrators for not providing for safe conduit or emergency exits? After all the expenditure on silk wear and gold jewelry for the idols and after accounting for the expense of bathing them in milk and honey, it is simply unreasonable to expect that the authorities should also have to spend on building planning with safe exits and emergency plans. Why unnecessarily burden the police force by asking them to streamline the expected crowds when there is God to take care fo everyone?
I mean com'on. This is not the first time a stampede has happened, is it? Why raise a hue and cry about it? It's God's will and any actions of us mere mortals to prevent by excercising some common sense care would have certainly been rendered impotent. As proper devouts, we should just submit to it.
Comments
Such is the apathy of the nation where ignorance, human-error, lack of planning & worst of all the 'chalta hein' attitude has taken its toll time & again & no lessons are learnt. The same scene is repeated with near predictability each year! Seriously... May God only help!
After the Latur earthquake, the experts' verdict was that were the buildings made more in line with the prescribed codes, the loss of life would have been less. Same conclusion in Gujrat, about half a decade later. It is understandable that Indian cities have a lot of old structures and it is not realistic to expect of the owners to introduce structural modifications in these buildings to make them safe. But why do the new structures not conform to the standards? Moreover it is astounding that the new structures in Latur too do not adhere to earthquake safety requirements, despite the huge amout of international aid that flowed in to help them do this. The low regard we have for our lives is beyond comprehension.
How do we explain emergency unsafe public structures? How many times have I stood in the tortuous queues in mandirs wondering that if there is a fire, would I ever be able to reach the lone door in the corner? How I felt as if being trapped while going into the tunnel at Vaishnav Devi? Why can such holy places, with enough finances at their disposal, fail to care for safety of their devotees? I was being paranoid, agreed, but is this not true?
The blog was perhaps a rant to no purpose - afterall tragedies always happen to 'someone else' and even then, its a 'will of god'
Nothing much has changed in Mumbai after the 2005 Mumbai-floods & it's a time-bomb waiting to explode any monsoon, but all's at the mercy of the rain-gods! It took the Upahaar-cinema tragedy for some basic fire-safety measures to be made obligatory for upcoming multiplexes.
Change is gradual, and a lot of awareness creation is driven by NGO's & the media. I say this as recently I got a chance to see closely the workings of a Pune-based-NGO involved in the recent Bihar-flood-relief. It's the persistence of NGO's & individuals & the highlighting by the media that often is needed to introduce improvement/conformance measures & legal amendments.
If someone comes and tells me that the house I am constructing needs a solid foundation what will I think
saala paise khane ko aa gaya.
I would check the local history and see that there have been earthquakes here. But wait. Should I trust this report.
Second thing that is affecting us is the inertia. We just don't want to move away from our comfort zone and go for some change.
if the chair we are sitting is broken we wont get up and find a chair for ourselves. We will wait for Europeans and American to design the chair .. and expect Chinese to manufacture it in low cost and then purchase it as an 'imported chair'
The thinking part of our lives has been dead...