WHEN WHAT WE'VE FEARED COMES TRUE- II

Mr.R and I are fine. Thanks to all those who called, sent texts or emailed to ask about us.(For those of you who didn't bother, you're off my Christmas card mailing list! :)

But seriously, yesterday brought to mind how similar London and Mumbai really are. We've all seen our share of bombs on BEST buses, of packages left on trains and briefcases exploding on the street. Just thinking about it brings to mind several incidents on the local trains where panic was generated just by some smoke coming in or by trains halting every few minutes due to an electric problem. It's so easy to generate panic, really. But the scenes coming in from mobile phone cameras in London show a remarkable order and calmness in the evacuation from the tube tunnels. The disaster plan was in place and everybody knew what they have to do. You have to be prepared at all times and you need to have trained people to take over - not just people who look into cameras surreptiously (and even wave!) while pretending to control the panic.

Looking at Manmohan Singh standing behind Tony Blair as he gave his statement surrounded by world leaders at Gleneagles made me think that we could learn from the way the emergency plans, here in the UK, are in place for either natural, man-made or terrorist attacks, and how seriously they take their plans. Never mind that they couldn't stop it (you really can't, in a city of millions), what interests me is how the 'System' take over once something does happen. It's amazing and a system worth emulating.

Another eerie reminder is the fear of reprisals on the Muslim community. An all too familiar scene, backlash and mindless revenge immediately after such incidents usually have a political overtone in India, but here it may be right-wing extremists and local hoodlums who would take this opportunity to press their case for stopping the inclusion of non-white cultures into mainstream Britain. Fingers crossed to see what will happen in the coming days.

It's about 24 hours since the first explosions happened and Londoners are back in business, just like MW's after a similar day. Two great cities, each with different ways of reacting,planning or dealing with disasters, but ultimately, each with people who are resilient and determined not to let evil take over our lives.