23/05/2025
To go for a holiday, families traveling together is a celebration. A celebration of coming together of hardworking families to explore different cultures, cuisines and landscapes. Schedules are planned, leave applications submitted, shopping lists prepared and bookings made in advance. The anticipation builds up to the date of travel and there is pure joy as the holiday begins. You can witness this joy at any airport or railway station. The many flashing cameras document each part of the experience all to come together in the many reels.
In India we are spoiled with the choices of destinations for holidays. The diversity in culture, cuisine and landscape is a very wide spectrum from the Himalayas to the coasts of Peninsular India, the history of each region distinct with many options for a memorable family holiday.
The domestic tourism industry in India is robust, a growing economy is fueling the aspirations of millions to take a well deserved break and go for a holiday. When the families travel far and wide to the remote corners of India, they fuel local economies. Tourism has a great impact and has a multiplier effect on jobs and the business ecosystem. Entrepreneurs invest into these ecosystems triggering more demand. All this keeps our economy growing.
The core tenants on which our country was founded celebrates this diversity and all credit to the men and women who led us on to this path. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about our neighbors, who adopted a different path that led them to be more radicalised. Today Pakistan is a failed state. Their adoption of conservatism that follows and celebrates one culture and religion has been their impediment in growth. It is natural that they feel threatened by the India story.
People who are byproducts of the radicalised and failed state of Pakistan that are sick in their head walk into a peaceful meadow with their fancy guns and attacked us. They targeted people of a particular religion, hoping to create a divide among us. They attacked the idea of India, they attacked our tourism. These cowards thought that they could achieve their agenda by killing unarmed civilians on a holiday.
They were wrong, they were so wrong. Right from the first responders, the local Kashmiris, who opened their hearts and homes to the victims, to our armed forces who made us all proud in their response to our leadership who guided us through this national tragedy. India showed the solidarity and maturity of a confident nation.
We were let down by one pillar that had the job to present us all the facts, the importance of a strong and independent media is understated. The television media let us down with their fake news. It is unfortunate that these jokers thought that sensationalism and divisive coverage was the right thing to do.
Shame on you Godi media, please wake up and look beyond your echo chambers. You don't represent us, you don't ask our questions, you don't present the facts. You exist for one job, you make your big bucks for that one job and you let us all down. India deserves a stronger media, thankfully we have the likes of newslaundry, new minute and Scroll and many others fighting the good fight. More power to them.
There are 3 drafts of this edition sitting in my drive. The rage and frustration of this senseless act of terrorism has affected us a lot. Our heart goes out to all the families and friends who have lost their loved ones. They will live with this trauma forever, we as a country will move on.
People from different parts of the country went to the beautiful meadows in Kashmir, they were creating memories and enjoying their holiday, some of them never returned.
