When bombs went off in Bombay on the evening of July 13, I took a train down to Dadar's Kabutarkhana (where one of the bombs had been placed). Later, I wrote a short essay for Khabar magazine on some of what I found there.
The essay is in their current (August) issue. Take a look: I saw cell phones.
Comments always welcome.
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6 comments:
Ok, so you saw others with cell phones recording the gore ... but what about those who saw you (and maybe others) rushing to the scene to find out what happened "firsthand"? You observed with your mind (and maybe reporter's notebook), while others did so with cellphones ... You don't say if you did anything to help other than write in "khabar" ...
Fair point. How am I different? I don't spell out what I did or didn't do because I'm not interested in posing to the effect of "in contrast to these guys, I did xyz."
If accounts about what I did are relevant to what I am writing, I'll write about them. When I've been in certain such situations in the past, I've done certain things. Some of this has figured in what I write (you're welcome to go take a look). Some has not (the same). That's the way it goes.
If it leaves me open to criticism like yours, that's the way that goes too.
Dilip your response sounds like you did nothing different from the videographers you berate. Perhaps these offenders too do more meaningful things when not being observed by you. That is the way it goes?
Perhaps these offenders too do more meaningful things.
Perhaps they do (though why you call them "offenders" beats me). That is indeed the way it goes. But that's all the response you get from me about this. Like I said, if it leaves me open to criticism like yours, that's the way that goes too.
ok...ok, the point to be well taken is the undesirable craze for disaster tourism or maybe the spontaneity of opportunistic response and not of the desirable response at the moment. A writer writing about it is still many times better than the ones who have chosen to look the other way!
Well I, distinct from first anon, called them offenders since I believe you referred to them as yahoos. I think of them as offenders since they would replay their videos with a ghoulish glee given away by the look on their faces you observed. Perhaps you and I judge them too harshly. But yes no more need be said. That is the way it goes.
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