October 30: celebration of pain

October 30, 2008, a black day in the history of Assam, a day that left us battered and bruised. The more we try to come out from that tragedy, the more we try to ease the pain, the more its become acute. The pain seems to be aggravated by the way, the second anniversary of the tragedy was celebrated specially in the state capital. The celebrations with festive height with musical evenings and the gleeful faces and the flippant attitude of the participants in the Great Guwahati Run in front of the camera made many of us forget for a while the real cause and felt as if a mega sporting event has been organized with bollywood celebrities lending the glamour touch. The unabashed efforts of the electronic media to celebrate the “BLACK DAY” more extravagantly than one another was really pathetic and the fact that they were running after higher TRPs was crystal clear. They were competing against each other in fetching the more popular artists of the state, thereby making their show grander than the rest. Generally we have seen that silence and gravity marks such occasions, but here, “noise” dominated. Publicity gimmicks overshadowed genuine concerns and everything turn out to be a mere farce. Seeing all these, we fear that 30th October is most likely to be included or added to our already existing long list of festivals because we are famed for our love of festivals and a day out is always welcome.

There were no real cry for justice; either it is the media or people in general. Most of the culprits still roaming scot-free and those behind the bars are spending their days in comfort, due courtesy the hospitality of state government. As long as the minds of the people undergoes revolutionary changes and uproot the fear of terrorism from their minds, no marathon, no musical evenings will put an end to this menace of terrorism.