Bombings

There were bombings in Bangalore on Friday. At least one person was killed. On Saturday, there were bombings in Ahmedabad. Many people were killed. Both of these cities are considered Information Technology centers in India. Chennai is another IT hub in India, and even though IT was not considered the target, our host company has advised members of our group not to leave our hotel today. We are complying.

The Indian newspapers that we have access to are very sensationalistic. Today's headline in the Sunday Times was "B'lore, Ahmedabad. Who's next?". Nothing like calming the masses... The papers show pictures of dead people laying in the rubble. This is not something you would see in an American newspaper.

The hotel staff also asked that we do not venture out of the hotel today. They assured us though that this is a highly unusual situation, and they do not expect anything bad to happen in Chennai. But they asked us to be cautious. They asked us to to be patient for a day or two and then they expect everything to be back to normal. I heard that there are police checkpoints all around our area since this part of the city has a high concentration of IT companies, and that it is taking more time to get anyplace because the police are checking everybody. Our group has already made plans to leave a little earlier tomorrow morning to get to work on time.

It is somewhat surreal to be in a foreign country with terrorist attacks occurring even though they are hundreds of kilometers away. We see and hear news reports on TV, we see and read newspaper stories about the attacks, and we discuss among ourselves about the tragedies. Yet, we are very insulated from the events. We are staying at a plush hotel, we eat at the hotel's restaurants, and everything seems to be just like any other day. It like the events are so far away, and they don't concern us. Since we don't leave the hotel, we don't even see the police which would alert us that something is very different. Tomorrow when we leave the hotel to go to work, we may have more of an awareness of the gravity of the situation. Today, we sit by the pool, work out at the gym, watch TV, eat, and anything else to pass the time.