Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Are we safe?

Today I happened to go to passport office in Worli. It is situated in Bengal Chemicals building and looked a pretty new office. There are two main halls, one each on either side. Both the halls were packed to full capacity.

At the entrance, I was asked by the security why I want to go in. I just had to utter one word “passport” and he let me in without further enquiry or checking. With a small rucksack on my back, one large plastic bag and a handbag I entered. Near the Xerox counter two public telephones are kept. Since no one was using the telephones (probably they were out of order) I kept my bags on the counter and stood in the nearest queue. After around 45 minutes I thought of taking one round to give some exercise to my legs. My bags were still there on the counter within my sight. I was in that hall for more than three hours in total before moving to the other hall and to my surprise no one was bothered about those unclaimed bags lying on the counter.

Last weekend, I saw two French movies from the French festival at Fun Republic. Fun Republic is a mall and has mini theatres, a gaming arcade and a bowling alley, a Macdonald among other outlets. First day we were a little late (thanks to Mumbai traffic) so had to rush directly to the movie floor from basement car parking area. Showed our tickets at the entrance of cinema and we were inside the picture hall.

Next day we reached early, parked the car and instead of going up the movie floor, came to the other side of the building. At the door there was a security guard who didn’t bother to even look at us since we were coming out of the building. We played bowling for sometime, had snacks before re-entering into the building for movie through the same entrance from where we had come out. Now this time there was a lady security guard also and she casually checked my handbag (not me). There is no such checking if we enter the building from parking lot side. When I pointed this out to them, they just ignored it saying, “Check to kar rahen hain, aur kya karen?”.

Question - After so many cases of bomb blasts, are we safe?

Current song- Agar Tum Mil Jao, Zamana Chhod Denge Hum – Udit

4 comments:

Keshi said...

we r never 100% safe anywhere in the world. cos security measures always need to get updated and unfortunately that happens only when an unimaginable tragedy happens.

Keshi.

Sunil Parashar said...

It's true that security personalls are not doing their job aptly but then our safety is in our hands... those lin n thin sucrity waalas can't even handle their dress proprely..never expect 2 persons to control the whole mall!!!

SiD said...

well... it seems mumbai is not learning from the mistakes....
regd Fun Republic.. come to chd.. here u will get a long queue outside..each person is frisked before going inside.. dont know abt women.. but men are made to go thru metal detectors and all... still not foolproof but still a big detterant..
next time you can do a citizen journalist thing and send to CNN... ;)

BTW what happened to that AFter December thing - no after Decemeber for French movies?????

Cuckoo said...

Keshi, Sunil, SiD,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, it is never 100% safe. When a security measure gets updated after an attack, the attackers find another way to master it.
We, the public can just be more alert on our part.