We the cheap lives.

The huge media frenzy generated for YSR shook the entire nation. Everybody knows YSR overnight, inlcuding the so ignorant me! But, I was wondering why such a big hungama was generated. There have been several chopper crashes in the past and so may pilots have lost their lives....so what was new?

Stupid stupid me, of course I should know he was a politician and that makes him a mini god in this country and you and me are second rate citizens in our own country. So, in the last 3 days all we heard and saw on each and every channel and newspaper was just about YSR getting lost, YSR search operation, YSR's death, YSR's family, wife, power hungry son, and the succession struggle. Did you even hear about the other 4 brave people on board who also went down with YSR? Were their lives not as important and worthy enough? Do those 4 people have no families? Have they not done anything worth remembering in their personal and professional lives? Do we even know their names? Just because they were ordinary citizens like you and me, so their life or death doesnt deserve any airspace?

Sonia ji calls up and visits YSR's family, declares 7 day mourning, gives a state funeral. All the journos are counting the good deeds of YSR and making a bigger than life hero out of him and nobody even dedicating 2 kind words for those other 4 people. (On another note, the hero image of YSR sounds very strange considering the warlord backgrouod he and his dad enjoyed. Read this old TOI article (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/782107.cms).

No doubt, we lost a life, but we didnt loose 1 life, we lost 5 human lives and we need to get to the root of what happended and why? I dont care for a politician loosing his life. I care that 5 humans lost their lives in very sad and terrible way! It hurts to see why 1 person is glorified and the other 4 lives are not even talked or acknowledged by the media. Shame on the media!

The government defends itself and says that the chopper had technical flaws earlier and thats why it was always used to trains pilots. Excuse me!!! does that mean that pilots lives are cheap and their lives could be played around with? If it would have crashed with trainee pilots, it would have been dismissed as just another petty case like the scores that have happened before! My sympathies lie with the pilots who were forced to fly to their deaths. Can you ever imagine ISRO, sukois, US satellites searching for a chopper with some XYZ trainee pilot in it?

Where are we as a nation heading? It is pathetic the way lives are treated in this country (unless its a politican's life). How can we differentiate among people's death? After all death is death..its the same for you and me or some YSR! How can we glorfy the lives and death of certain people and ignore the rest. Everybody has a life and a family and they mean the world to them. But, class, status, and how famous you are dictate the kind of respect you earn not only in your lifetime, but also when you die.

Sadly, yours, mine, and the scores of pilots who have died training in those technically faulty choppers lives come cheap. Yes, we are India, we are the cheap cheap lives and people of this country.
RIP all the 5 people who lost their lives serving the nation.