What a horrible week

This has just been a terrible week in the world.

First, the Mumbai train blasts on Tuesday. Seven blasts in the main commuter trains in the financial capital of India. More than 200 hundred people dead - and that too in such a horrible, gruesome way. The bombs exploded during the peak of rush hour, at a time they could cause maximum damage.

And then, since Wednesday, Israel's offensive against Lebanon. After the Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border, Israel has upped the ante and has been attacking Beirut, holding nothing back. This is in addition to the heavy attacks that it is also carrying out on Gaza City.

Two totally unconnected disasters in different parts of the world. The only commonality is that, as always, it is not the ones in power who actually must face the consequences of their decisions. Innocent civilians are the ones who actually must see their loved ones killed, their houses destroyed, their lives completely shattered. I can't even begin to imagine what it must mean to have your home bombed from the sky. What must it feel like to keep wondering whether you will live another five minutes, what sort of impotent rage will course through your bones as you watch the airplane that totally destroyed your life fly away? What do you do when a loved one, someone who had never ventured off the beaten path - living a safe life, a simple life - goes to work in the morning and never comes home?

I don't know. And I pray that I never do learn, because it must be unbearable anguish. What possibly frightens me the most is the idea that your life is no longer in your control - that your decisions, choices, lifestyle, ability to live even - is decided by the actions of another. And not someone else whom you know and have an influence over, but by someone who is a complete alien to your existence, a stranger to whom your life has no consequence. What must it feel like to feel as if whatever control you have over your life is taken away, that you no longer seem to matter? What does it feel like to no longer exist?

I don't know. What I do know is that I am more concerned by the loudest voices I hear coming out of the region. In India, thankfully, the voices speak of unity, of strength, of brotherhood, of not bowing before terror. In the Middle East, the rhetoric escalates as quickly as the firing.

I don't know who is right and who is wrong. What I do know is this - whoever wins at the end of this conflict - whatever "winning" might mean - that victory will be as tainted and cursed as the worst defeat. Victory in such a meaningless war, one that is fought without honour and code, is meaningless.

There are times this world seems committed to destroying itself as soon as possible.