Mumbai got bombarded with terrorists and escaped from further damage due to the bravery of our commandos, and how do the politicians treat them?  The by now infamous ‘Dog-lover’ Achuthanandan abuses the parents of slain Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, others play it down as ‘minor matters’ while the hapless Prime Minister thinks that the best he can do is offer to offer his resignation!

If that opportunity was not enough for our fellow Indians to display their apathy, insensitivity and arrogance,  they got another one yesterday, at the International Marathon organized to bring about awareness about Aids, in Pune. The organizers seemed to think that ‘good management’ meant ensuring the presence of top-billed actors from Bollywood at the venue,  the infrastructure and venue management and even the actual participants be damned! Here’s what transpired: The good route guide got lost and took the race off the track, increasing the distance of the run by a staggering 3.5 Km.  This confused other athletes and in the absence of anybody to guide them, they took off in different directions and got lost. 

Fifteen athletes, mostly people coming all the way from Kenya and Ethiopia got muddled and got disqualified for no fault of theirs.  The crowning insult was delivered by the organizers and the technical committee who said that the mistake was the fault on the part of the athletes for not sticking to the pre-advertised route.  Wow!  To err is human and many use that adage to excuse their mistakes and blunders, but is it pardonable to blunder and toss the blame on other innocent people?  ‘What the heck? A bunch of Kenyans and Ethiopians lost their way in our magnificient city.  Hardly our fault!’, These were the words that the organizers seemed to convey by their actions and statements.  Pune is a city which I have now been residing for the past year and a half and I can quite easily get lost on many roads here, yet a foreigner, who has probably never been to this city ever before is expected to find his own way, just by looking at a map the day before the race!! The second galling thing is apart from having to run the extra mile (literally!), the runners had to negotiate their way through city traffic! (Yeah, you guessed it.. the roads were open for traffic.)  Imagine running hard and getting a lungful of soot-filled exhaust excreta when you take that gulp of air.. Wow.. That seems so soothing. Why is it that we seem to showcase our apathy, ignorance, insensitivity and arrogance as if we are so proud of them? And that too with such regularity?  I suppose mediocrity has become an all pervading force, so much so that even Himalayan blunders are pooh-poohed away.