as an indian living in the US i was extremely disgusted with the round of emails lampooing the american gov for messing up the relief work in New Orleans and comparing it to the unfortunate tuesday in mumbai...
like ur article points out it isnt the same...the disaster in N.O is of way larger magnitude than in mumbai..disaster followed disaster.hurricane...broken levies..flooding...fire....
the first thing that peeved me about the emails was that while americans while dealing with unprecedented tragedy we indians were sharing emails crticizing them and feeling good about urselves...where were the emails asking for relief and help for katrina victims..lets face it US has always been the largest contributor to every country during times of need....
secondly lets look at how the media handled it...in india the media was reporting things as it was...mirroring the trouble in mumbai....cribbing about the lack of govt response...but it was an objective reporting...a narration of events as they occured...but the media in the US rendered an empathetic report..they criticized the gov and got things done...
am sorry to say we indians demonstrated a lack of humanity and am ashamed.
I have been getting these emails and reading these articles and had similar thoughts like the author. Mumbai and New Orleans is not a right comparison. The writer has given appropriate examples for people who want to jump to conclusions.
Mr Ram Kelkar What ever you said is absolutely right, Both Mumbai and New Orleans failed in providing the help to the poor, the point here is never before has India proclaimed to be a Super power and Indians never spoke ill of the suffering americans. The points raised by NRI's and Indians as a whole reflects the anger of Indians for Americans who have been showing the Indians down. The mails are only Indians way telling people like you and the message is ........ """" stop Showing fingers at Indians and YOU look in the mirror first...."""""
Its great to see such an article coming from an Indian. I have been getting so sick of reading all the comments by my fellow Indians about our "so-called" superiority to the rest of the world. It just takes a look around our own backyards to realize where we are. Thanks for an honest article.
RE:Fantastic Article!
by readiff on Sep 19, 2005 09:56 AM Permalink
A balanced article that points out the trigger-happy-i-am-so-superior crowd.
what happened in mumbai is commendable and what happened in n.o. was pathetic. but the conclusion that, thus we indians are superior to americans are just plain crap. dont forget the spirit of americans after sept-11th. and dont think that the failure of US gov is same as failure of american people.
Also note that the hurricane packs much more punch than one can imagine. This was 120+ mph and about the size of tamilnadu or larger. 200+ bn $s in destruction spread over three states speaks for itself.
Good defence of the US, in the Indian media , that too.
Wonder if thie guy has strained so hard to defend India (Presumably his "matrabhoomi") when it gets (ROUTINELY) mis-characterized in the American / Western media ?
Hope he bleeds at least a little bit for his own culture.
