Candlelight Vigil held in London for Mumbai attack victims

Update: Event was also held at Canary Wharf, London on 3rd December. Link to photos below.

More than 350 people put a brave face and defied low temperature, breeze and drizzle late in the evening on Sunday to gather at Indian High Commission in London. While I don’t believe in passive action such as forward-this-email-for-a-cause, this event did bring forward a few people who had pain in their hearts and sadness writ large on their faces. The fact that what was meant to be a small private event organised by two friends generated this kind of response is evidence enough of the profound impact this disaster has had on these people. I will try and post a few photos so that it stays in our hearts for long time to come because it is just as easy to forget.

Photos of candlelight vigil held at High Commission and Canary Wharf are here

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As a side note, let us hope that the Mumbai massacre does not turn in to an India-Pakistan issue because it is not. It was an act perpetrated by a minority who have misplaced motivation to cause maximum physical damage. I don’t believe that they represent any country, religion or faith. Of course, India needs to apply maximum pressure on Pakistan to take action against seperatist groups and Pakistan needs to do everything to prove that it was not ISI sponsored. To give free reign to such groups to train in the region will inevitably attract wrath of many countries who are suffering at the hands of these groups. But, we should resist the temptation of being drawn in to a tit-for-tat action because it is a vicious circle which is almost impossible to get out of and almost always the one’s to suffer are those who believe in innocent form of life.

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Mumbai Attacks: United we stand divided we fall

24 hour round the clock live coverage of devastating Mumbai attacks has made sure that the pain is felt by each and everyone throughout the world. And rightly so. It was attack on anyone who believes in the central theme of life. There can be no motivation good enough for such callous indiscriminate killing. But, let there be no bias in our condemnation of acts of violence. Every Indian has right to feel Indian in each and every part of this country. Raj Thackeray’s of this country should not be allowed to prosper. Incidents like that of Orissa should never be allowed to happen. There should be one true spirit. And that should be Indian spirit. That will prove to be the biggest deterrent for those who believe that they can puncture the social fabric of India by launching such gruesome attacks. Politicians will continue to be politicians and time will take its toll on the intensity or anger that everyone feels right now. Let that not be the case. Violence, any kind of violence, should be condemned in strongest possible terms. There are probably things that shouldn’t be said aloud but, this is the lowest I could keep my voice.

You are fired!

Is it as brutal as they make it out to be? I found out on Thursday. “As you all know these are unprecedented times. We are having to take some very tough decisions...” It was coming from the speakerphone as we were rushed in to an audio conference to be attended by all our global teams. You could sense his tone. You could sense the mood in the room. Everyone knew what will follow. But, no one knew the number. Two, three, entire team? Logically, this was one of the strongest team in one of the best performing businesses so, something like that was unlikely to happen. Huh! If everything followed the course of logic, I should have been on a holiday. Everyone was going through the same feeling. “Come on, it can’t be that. Can it? What if it is? No one thought Lehman was going to collapse. No one thought blah blah blah.” Events with lowest probability of happening were capturing most people’s imagination because that was likely to have maximum shock-value. It was about to get unbearble and then he said. “We are having to let two people from the department go.” Just when we thought it was time to breathe a sigh of relief, we started wondering, “Who are they?”. And the heart started racing again. All the feelings were back. The desire to bang your head on to the hard fancy wooden table had never been that strong because you knew you won’t feel the pain. No pain was strong enough to beat the one that everone on the conference call was experiencing. “Those two people have been notified...” There it was. It was not me. But, lets take a moment. I along with other members of my team had held weekly video conference with this team about 30mins ago. These guys were part of the meeting where we had discussed roadmap for next few months and these guys had active roles to play. Their next meeting turned out to be their last. Even though Citigroup stole the limelight with its shares plunging below $5, I had all sorts of emotions going through my head for the rest of the evening.

What the hell, its for a good cause!

Its always a challenge when we have to go out of our normal course of lives to do something. Most of the time we shrink our head back in to our comfort zones for sight outside is either too horrific or too revealing. But, sometimes we manage to muster enough courage to take the fight to these fears just to see what it feels like to do something “crazy”.

My experience while collecting funds for Bihar floods has been interesting. While people from very unexpected quarters have come forward, most people have decided to shrug their shoulders after making sure that we know how “sorry” they are.

The fact remains that as long as individual’s self interest is protected, in majority of cases people confine their life to “Me, my family, my religion/caste, my state, my country” in that order. While contributing to such disasters might not be as easy as forwarding emails to five friends in order to claim their share of prosperity, it has revealed time and again how superficial life most people live. But, most people will boil when such a suggestion is made. While people continue to moan about things they would like to do but can’t, the fact remains that either you do it or you don’t. Its not necessarily a bad thing because that forms the majority. But still, its important that they learn to live with it for thats who they are and not moan about it.

One needs a far cavalier and positive attitude to come forward to help just in the name of “what the hell, its for a good cause!”. Thanks to all those who have shown this side of theirs and prove what my dad says time and again that “there are enough good people in this world to stop it from going in to hell”.

While it is not intended to offend, it doesn’t hurt to put mirror in front of people’s faces from time to time.

Related post: Bihar Floods – What can you do?