Hall of Shame

Here is a brief roundup of activites of various people after the Bombay blasts. The last of the explosions occured at 6:35 PM. At 7:18 PM, Abi blogs about happiness. Of course we can not blame this professor for not catching up sooner, given that he lives far from the spot. He wisened up only at about 8:41 PM, when he wrote a brief post on the terror attacks. Needless to say what Abi says on his blog is entirely his own business and certainly not everyone is obligated to write about every tragedy.

Let's see what a famed journalist was doing during the aftermath. It is fair to assume that the news of the blasts took at least a half-hour to propagate. Given the unrelenting rains and the unforgiving traffic, it would take at least 45 minutes for even journos to reach any of the blast spots. This brings us to about 7:50 PM. Dilip D'Souza wrote his first blog entry at 10:42 PM. He wrote several other posts the same evening and following morning, at 11:02 PM, 12:12 AM, 12:33 AM and 9:33 AM. Again, we assume that Dilip started writing his first blog post at around 10:30 PM. It would have taken him at least 45 minutes to reach home. Therefore he left for home from wherever he was at 9:45 PM at the latest.

Dilip D'Souza spent less than 2 hours outside the cozy comforts of his apartment, following the blasts. He was home by 10:30 PM, in time for a nice dinner perhaps. He also got at least 8 hours of sleep while his heart bled for the victims.

The posts he writes are not just hastily written snippets. They are long deliberate essays, full of links and information. Moreover, in each of the posts covering the blasts, he meticulously linked the previous ones. He also informs that he didn't get to donate blood. At least he tried. Dilip has also started a new blog, in case you haven't noticed. Apparently this blog will list the names of victims of various tragedies. Makes us wonder, does Dilip really want this blog to grow? For a journalist his research seems to be woefully inadequate, given that he didn't take the pain to write the full list of victims. Even amateurs like us did a better job in the previous post.

Quite surprisingly, not one of the 10 bloggers of The Other Idiots had any time to update the blog about the blast. Perhaps first class passengers are not deemed part of the other India.Their latest blog post as of now is about Shiv Sena, which is ironic to say the least.

If Arjun Singh has his way, students in India can expect to have many exciting classmates, including some trained in modern guerilla warfare techniques, firearms and explosives. Should be a lot of fun. By the way, he announced this the very next day of the blasts.

Dilip D'Souza categorically denied Al Qaida involvement in the attacks, the very next morning. Mulayam Singh denied that he had ever tried to protect SIMI. Looks like the investigation was doomed even before it had begun.

The award however goes to a journalist who wrote this interesting piece. Granted that many bloggers were dying to see riots following the blast, none can match this one. You can almost sense that he had already written down a piece about the supposed riots. We expect him to gain widespread fame in the days to come in international journalism.