Blasts in Bangalore

Yesterday was a strange day. Fridays here always seem to have a mix of madness in the air, but yesterday was particularly unusual and frightening at the same time. After picking up Sofia from her school in Koramangala (about 15 minutes drive from our home)... I walked with Sofia a couple blocks away to a small shopping center where they have a Play Zone for children (similar to Chuck-E-Cheese in the States). I had been promising her all week to take her on Friday, so I wanted to keep my word. By coincidence we also bumped into G with two of his friends from work going there for lunch. This was about 1:00 to 2:30 pm. When we were eating lunch, G's friend got a phone call from a friend telling him that there had been a few blasts around Bangalore and to be careful. But he didn't really have much more information than that.

Having lived in Israel, G and I didn't freak out immediately, being somewhat familiar to such intense situations. When we got home the news was reporting 5 or 6 or 7 blasts (depending on which news channel you were watching) around the same time between 1 and 2:30 pm. Thankfully they were all low-intensity handmade timed bombs and out of the many blasts, only 7 were injured and one 32-year-old woman was killed. Two of the blasts were in Koramangala... the worst out of all of them being in Koramangala directly across a popular mall (not the same one we happened to go to!). I think they were all placed in crowded places, mostly at bus stops. Comically when I was watching to news to get some reassurance... they kept showing over and over again a police officer or "the man in charge" repeating that Bangaloreans had nothing to fear and that the situation was contained and under control... and the next picture you see is a "bomb expert" placing a orange bucket over the point where one of the blasts went off!!! My friend Angeli and I were laughing so hard!! Such is India :-)

Apparently there is some speculation that it could be a retaliation effort from the previous week's incident where someone placed pig meat at the door step of a mosque in Bangalore (riots took to the streets soon after). I think that is probably the most likely cause for these blasts... of course there's also the speculation that it was a terrorist thing, but I think if it were an organized terrorist activity, the blasts wouldn't have been low-intensity and most likely they would've aimed to do bigger damage. This seemed to me just to be from some angry amateurs that merely wanted to instill some fear.

Anywho, all is well.. people have been hibernating since the news yesterday and IT companies especially were sending people home to their families. Most things have been canceled, including my parent-teacher meeting that I was supposed to have today. We've decided to play it extra safe and just stay at home today too... which isn't such a bad idea 'cause it forces me to do the "spring cleaning" that I never got a chance to do :-)