It's best that I shut up: Ram Gopal Varma

Two rail accidents on Sunday followed by three blasts in Mumbai on Wednesday. The loss of lives seem to have just become a joke.
While some celebs are into activism on social networking sites demanding punishment of the perpetrators of crime, many others feel that the death toll is soon reducing to mere statistics meant for headlines. Are we becoming too densensitized to tragedy?
Pritish Nandy Columnist
We are becoming totally desensitized.This apathy is in the very nature of urbanization and that is exactly why we must reconsider our current models of growth and modernization. They are destroying the fabric of our traditional social order and densensitizing us as a nation, as people.
Mahesh Bhatt Film-maker
Those who want to stop paying taxes, are expressing their frustration with the system. If putting pressure on the system will push it to act, I have no problems in supporting it. Yes, people do get desensitized with repeated incidents of such attacks. But the drumbeat of life plays on. We are on a treadmill of existence. Pause and you die.
RGV Film-maker
Do we then become Rambos? Beyond voting against the government in the next elections, what else the hell can anyone do? The online sites are flooded with comments from people, who are either cursing the government or threatening to not take things lyings down. Since I don’t have a better idea to give the security agencies on how to tackle the terrorist problem, I think, it’s best that I shut up on this.
Sarthak Dasgupta, Film-maker
The mind has so many times gone over the phenomenon of ‘what if it was me’ that these headlines don’t create jitters anymore. The mind knows there is no hope. The only realization is that you are not on the front page lying dead without a leg, you are still alive and the people close to you are still alive. It’s Russian roulette. You are already in the death game but still alive by strokes of chance.
Babul Supriyo, Singer
I am shocked and taken aback by the nonchalant and casual matter-of-fact demeanour with which citizens of Mumbai shared this news with each other. India is getting indifferent. Even today, one will see long lines outside ticket counters. People don’t care because they can’t afford to care. Corrupt politicians, baeauracrats, sportspersons, lawlessness, confusion, accidents, killings — we are slowly but surely learning to live with these disappointments. It should not be so but ask anyone on the street who has no choice but to go on with his daily life and he will say there is no point protesting. Life, for all of us, has to go on.
Shantanu Moitra, Composer
We became desensitized to tragedy many many years ago. With a billion plus population and everyday struggle, one has to go through in life to get a decent life, issues like safety, honesty, righteousness and coming together seem like concepts from another planet. The slogan “Aal izz well” should not be interpreted in this context of apathy that we as a nation suffer from. Unless an issue is big enough, we don’t let it affect us. We need just one man to stand up for us and make that change. War brings us together. We are now at war and we need to believe in that one man who will stand up and create the difference.
Asoke Viswanathan, Director
These are terrible times. Loss of life is certainly not just statistics. I don’t know about people in general but I haven’t lost my sensitivity at all. And this is true not just for terror attacks. We did raise a voice even when Jafar Panahi was arrested. People are reacting very seriously. No one is taking things lying down. At least, not me.
Tannishtha Chatterjee, Actor
Honestly, I don’t even know how to think of all these absurd incidents. Till it impacts us in person, I think, we all react to it as just another piece of news. We are totally desensitized.
Som Dasgupta, Musician
I have shifted base to Mumbai and was shocked on Wednesday evening after I heard the news of the blast. I was outside my house but was able to reach home safely. I am comfortably numb. I don’t even know what precautions one might take to avoid such mishaps. We are just like toys. One tragedy strikes after another and yet nothing can be done. I am very sad.