Welcome back readers,
We started the second semester with a very poignant and heart-breaking story “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer which is about a jittery nine year old boy Oskar who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks which led him to solve the mystery of the key he discovered in his father’s closet. The attack on the World Trade Towers which is one of the major theme in the novel was a national trauma suffered by the entire nation and in the larger sense world as a whole, but the drastic impact it has on the life of an individual is strikingly portrayed by Foer in his novel.
While reading the novel, I was moved by the grief and pain Oskar went through after losing his father in the 9/11 attacks and the changes these attacks brought on both personal (Oskar’s life) and national level .It took me back to the national trauma that I encountered as a citizen of India during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Unlike the 9/11 attacks during which I was too young to truly understand the actual situation and the people around me also only relied on media for the updates, 26/11 attacks were something that I witnessed not only on the television screen but by knowing about the situation from few of my acquaintances who actually lost their loved ones in the attacks. The essence, resilience and the very soul of India’s commercial and entertainment capital- Mumbai was tested like never before five years ago, when just 10 terrorists turned the world’s fourth largest city into a war zone, holding major landmarks such as the Taj Mahal Hotel under siege for three long days and nights. 166 people died, hundreds got injured and the entire nation broke down.
Even recently, the attacks in Paris were so heart breaking and tragic. The increase of such traumatic incidences in the world today are shameful and a threat to humanity and peace. The physical damage unkind attacks like these cause gets swept away quickly with time but the mental and emotional damage these attacks cause leave ever-lasting scars. We need to come together and stand by one another and not against one another to fight these wrongdoings in order to live in love, peace and harmony.