Honestly, when 26/11 began to unfold, it was mundane for us sitting at home. The same old record of terrorists and blasts in Mumbai. That how numb and conditioned my mind was. The previous 6 years had seen multiple blasts all over in India and specifically in Mumbai.

But only when the events began to extend did I begin to comprehend the enormity and dastardness of the attack. Gunmen entering our financial capital and moving around and shooting freely and taking entire building hostage.

The lackadaisical response from Delhi, the delay in NSG arriving on site, were all too familiar for me. I just didn’t expect anything better from the government. Was just grown used to this passive numb response. It was almost like we’ve learned to live with this termite stabbing

Us whenever they want to. Then the NSG got into action at last. The methodical work (even though slow) was broadcast on live TV. It gave a sense of comfort that we actually have the capability to terminate and bring and end to this. The celebrations later happened ofcourse.

The numbness turned to despair then anger and then hope and again anger. The final anger was when I realised show I have come to accept myself this situation to our country. How we are not demanding anything better from our leaders. What a humiliating sight it was in front of

The world for our response our inability to coastal security our inability to even arm our local policemen adequately and the logistics nightmare that the NSG showed us. There was a genuine question inside? Are we really a worthy nation state to be proud of?

Yes I’m being brutally honest here. We allowed a ragtag militia funded by the Army and intelligence of a rogue desert cult nation that is 5 times smaller than us to hold our financial capital hostage? Enough is enough was the mood. But what I then saw in the subsequent days and

And weeks was just FBI ppl ferried around, dossiers exchanged, press conference talking of Hafiz Saeed etc. Even then I thought, woah nice now we will go and do strikes on them or atleast ask the US to do a special Op to arrest and extradite them. (Well I had no hopes on our own

SF as I wasn’t familiar to what the Para SF can do). There was war like mahaul. But nothing happened on the Pak front absolutely nothing in front of our eyes. I was resigned to think “hmm maybe we are just led by a bunch of old leaders who can talk peace and strategy but have

Absolutely no interest in going to war or do punitive strikes.” I mean it is a base instinct of every citizen right? That you know the enemy country and you have the evidence and yet you choose to not attack them. Was wondering that maybe we just find our armed forces for show.

Or maybe we were simply not capable enough. Chidu came in as HM and made a bunch of changes that was really giving hopes. But still, there was no visible retaliation. There was no arrest of the perpetrator. That rage and anger still lives on.

As far as I’m concerned, we have not still retaliated for what happened on 26/11. Pak should’ve been put in its place, militarily. We didn’t. No use shouting “we deserve to have a permanent place in UN” if we couldn’t respond to a direct attack on our financial capital.

The jihadi tanzeems, the training camps, the ISI safe houses are still iperating, and they are still infiltrating every month. Brahmos in A&N can take all sort of superior S and spiral manoeuvers it wants but not one has been used to hit HVTs inside Pakistan and that will always

Be a handicap to say the least. The victory of Pakistan lies in it continuously running the Islamic jihad factory without us not able to punish them at will with Brahmos, or regular Air strikes or drone strikes. They are still winning by not losing.

And we have still kept our outlook as measure retaliation rather than proactive preemptive strikes. Even whether the retaliation is assured or not is doubtful. Because of our domestic politics. There are still candle holders, track-2 money makers and other sorts of peaceniks.