Taliban one hundred kilometers from Lahore and just 250 kilometers from India was screaming recently as breaking news headlines constantly flogged by an Indian TV news channel. I sometimes wonder whether the electronic hardware, if they had feelings, would also start displaying apathy and the Malthusian Law of Diminishing Returns would exhibit its applicability in this domain also.
Do of any of us ever pause to stop and think who the victims are every time a senseless violence takes place anywhere in the world. Every time it is innocent men, women and children. Simple folks who have just been going about their daily chores trying to make a living, suddenly become cannon fodder involuntarily when such human madness is surrendered to. The wow factor dissolves into apathy within a few days after any terrorist incident. The victims sooner rather than later become statistics to be used by the media and wily politicians in posterity to prove a point or a desperate attempt to score an argument in forums attended mostly by an audience influenced by half-baked information.
In the aftermath of the violence, does anybody ever think what happens to the family of the victims? How do they cope with the trauma that has embraced them permanently and left them handicapped in more ways than one? My title for this read was an inspiration from a book of Robin Sharma titled "Who Cries When I Die?" All of us must dispense with our smugness and false sense of comfort. We must realize that one day anyone among us could be the next victim lined in the cross hairs of the terrorist's agenda.
We must all cry out loud and do our bit to put an end to this macabre madness. For the media, I have a suggestion. Shed some tears. God Bless.
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