It's such a familiar story, that it's almost tiresome to bring it up

Kahan gaye woh log

It's such a familiar story, that it's almost tiresome to bring it up. Nevertheless it's one that, depending on your mood, you either shrug cynically at, or feel deeply sad and angry about.

I put on the TV and watch reports of the chlorine gas leak in Sewri. Three faces in helmets filled the screen-- firemen at the spot who reported that the chlorine had leaked from a consignment of 105 chlorine barrels that had been lying unclaimed and unmonitored on Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land since 2001. Only nine years.

The familiar buck-passing from jurisdiction to jurisdiction has already begun, of course. The MbPT blames the Customs and the Customs blames the MbPT. They also blame the Controller of Explosives -- who has not replied to any of their communications, and remains uncontactable by newspapers. Maybe this person or agency exists only on paper. Who knows? Meanwhile our CM, Ashok Chavan has issued the statesman-like statement: "There seems to have been a lapse." Wow, really?

So what? Government departments pass the buck. Corporates have call centres where agents are trained to speak like automatons answering our every query with nothing, a buck passing in ingenious disguise. We expect only this now.

But the image of the three firemen on the TV screen is the thing that went around in my mind. Because the first thing I thought was: they are going in to neutralise the chlorine. But they themselves have no masks. How will this work?

They are in hospital now. All they had to cover their faces with were pieces of cloth. Someone must have said -- we gave you helmets no? Now you want masks also or what? Oh apparently the Fire Department has 100 breathing apparatuses but only some officers have been trained to use them.

Following the November 26 attacks, the favourite cut-price slogan has become: Are We Safe? Who is We? Or is We just a nice word because it rhymes with Me? Was that political enlightenment similar to Bipasha Basu's sudden new feelings about the Censor Board and children being exposed to political reality because she has a film out set against the backdrop of the Kashmir struggle? I'd love to hear Ms. Basu's opinion on what's going on in Kashmir right now, but that might require more waiting than I have life for. I had hoped that at least some of the powerful, wealthy people who have a voice and clout and were on TV all the time in November 2008 -- sometimes three channels simultaneously -- would have been affected enough by their 26/11 experiences to stay with some issues. Where have they been lately? Because here's something they could be talking about.

The people who are supposed to keep us safe are the least protected in our system. They are badly paid, poorly insured. BMC workers pick up our toxic garbage without masks or gloves, leave alone implements. Firemen have no protective gear. Mumbai cops have defective bulletproof vests and outdated weapons. An average of 250 conservancy workers -- people who clean the city's filth from drains -- die each year from exposure to shit, sludge, germs, and poisonous fumes. We're such a talkative and offence-taking people. We want Joel Stein to apologise for his (rather poorly written) piece about Edison, NJ and Indian immigrants in TIME magazine. We are offended by someone's paintings or three lines in a book and want to vandalise and ban them. We are offended by Sania's skirt. But we are not offended by this situation around us. We should apologise to ourselves, for ourselves. On TV. Then we should ask again, Are You Safe?

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer, teacher and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at www.parodevi.com

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