What If...

11 deaths. 50+ injured. A city traumatised.

Yes, the blast was a cowardly act.
Yes, it only spilled innocent blood.
Yes, the perpetrators were inhuman.
Yes, they could have been interecepted.
Yes, there are a zillion ways things could have been different.

But they aren’t. So live with it.

Stop blaming the authorities. Stop blaming everyone else. Stop pointing that finger all over the place. If that finger did not have indelible ink last year, then you have no right to raise it – much less point it at anyone.

I have always wondered why our voluntary emergency response is always much better than the Emergency Response Teams. The answer, it recently struck me, is actually quite simple: the volunteers work out of passion, and not merely out of a sense of duty. The former ensures efficiency while the latter is the cause of mediocrity – both, at all levels.

Add to that the absence of an Emergency Reporting System – something akin to 9-1-1 in the U.S. or 9-9-9 in the U.K. – one single, short, number that can provide ALL sorts of Emergency Medical services AND be easily remembered by everyone. They did try the stunt with 1-0-0 a while back – but clearly, it has come to no use. Then again, other derivative numbers like 1-0-2 & 1-0-5 and 1-0-8 pretty much confused the hell out of everyone. By the time, anything was operational – everything was confusing & no one chose to utilize ANY of the number.

So how do we get this one single number working & operational?

Well, I have an idea:

Thanks to out-sourcing, India has a large number of call-centers, right? Say, a few of the larger ones (or many of the smaller ones) promise to dedicate 1% – 5% of their resources to the EMS call-centre (let’s assume for convenience, that it is) 1-0-8. Let’s say, hypothetically, the government decides to make their operational costs of allocating these resources tax-deductible – as an incentive for “social responsibility” or some such arrangement is arrived at, somehow.

We, the people, will have an Emergency Response Service with a dedicated number 1-0-8 & a (fairly) dedicated set of people on the other end of the line – not just some bored, apathetic, cynical, underpaid & over-worked cop, who’s sure that the caller is a crank even before s/he picks up the phone.

I want to actually work on this plan – on a city-wide scale first, then the state & then, hopefully take it country-wide. Any leads are welcome, any body willing to add their ideas is welcome, anybody willing to join forces with me is more than welcome. This time around, I want to DO something – something concrete, tangible; something that will actually help.

I don’t want to sit around uttering those two stupid words:

“What if…”