September 11th is marked on my kid’s school planner with a ribbon. A little printed red and blue ribbon near the date. And looking at it this past Tuesday I realize that it is that day, once again. We remember, and the world remembers with us. Memorial services are held, one of which I see on NDTV. Bush and Cheney and their wives in dark colored suits, walking arm-in-arm solemnly, slowly on TV. 9/11 is forever branded in our brains, seared into our memories. As it should.
Living this far away from India, and getting news via the web and TV, it’s like news coming through a very narrow pipeline. Whatever makes it into the pipeline gets through. Since you aren’t there to experience it yourself, the news comes to via the media, filtered by media sense of what makes news and what does not. It’s very selective – this news getting. What’s on page one hits you, you don’t go scrabbling to read the little news articles on page five.
Thus I hear about bus accidents, train crashes, atrocities on a regular basis. 5 died here, 10 died there, 50 died there. A bus fell into a ravine in one village, backward class men (15 of them) were killed in another. I hear about it and I read about it and I wince. Another bus accident, another rail line not maintained ? So many people dead ? When I lived in India, such news (and it was there then too) didn’t sink in. Not sure what it was then.
And then I hear about worse. One bomb-blast, no two, no three ! One, two, three plane hijackings, many hostages. We look on, the government looks on. After the immediate horror of the incident dies down, we forget. Media forgets, this news gets pushed into the background. An year passes, and another and another. Yes, I hear a passing mention of an anniversary, but really who remembers ? How many died ? How many were hurt ? How did it happen ? Was the cause found, and if it was, was it corrected ?
Not many casualities, yeah ? After all, in a country of a billion, a couple of hundred die here and there, how does it matter (do wait, I’m not at 100% cycnicism yet) ? But count the 100 here and 50 there and 10 from another day last week, and you’ll get a huge number. And yes, I’ve heard all the clichés about third world lives being cheap, and the poor resources which make it impossible to prevent accidents and tragedies.
But maybe it’s not resources at all – maybe it is that we forget too soon. There is no 8/20 or 4/22 or 1/13 – no date seared into our brains, no disaster burned into our memories. Consequently there is little outrage, no outward symptom of the fact that we remember the grievous wrong, or the fact that we respected and loved those who died for no fault of their own. It’s not one life or a thousand, it must be enough that one life was lost needlessly.
