Will smiles, Sean takes a beat.

Sean: My wife’s been dead two years, Will. And when I think about her, those are the things I think about most. Little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. Those made her my wife. And she had the goods on me too. Little things I do out of habit. People call these things imperfections, Will. It’s just who we are.

– Good Will Hunting

I agree with others that the knee-jerk reaction is all too familiar to the desi community – particularly post-9/11. We all feel the hurt, the anger, or the rage – but the question is, how will we direct it? Will we direct it to propagate a problem, or will we direct it toward healing?

I applaud the efforts of SM bloggers at keeping things focused on the tragedy itself as opposed to the spiraling, anger-induced commentary. I think it is a shame that in the past two weeks, SM got press that could have been done without. First, the rant from the obviously ignorant journalist who felt compelled to respond to Naina’s post with one of the most off-base, over-generalization filled articles I’ve read in a while. And now, Newsweek chooses to ignore the touching, even-minded, tolerance-promoting postings by ANNA and others on the tragedy itself, as well as a good majority of comments, in order to focus on a particular hate-mongering comment. Way to miss the mountain for the mole hill.

I just want to share a thought that I’ve been turning around in my head. As a disclaimer, I am not by any means trying to detract from magnitude of this tragedy, and my sympathies lie with all those who lost loved ones. I just want to make a comment regarding perception. We are all feeling the sanctity of life which is why the shootings have horrified us. I know there are obvious dissimilarities and I am not trying to do a side-by-side comparison, but this morning I read that 183 people died in bombings in Baghdad. I’m not trying to play one tragedy against the other; my point is this: life is precious and when it is innocently and needlessly lost, it is always an enormous tragedy regardless of motives and politics. I just wanted to put it out there – our world is rocked by this senseless tragedy in Virginia. How on earth are people coping in regions like Darfur or Iraq where this is a way of life??? Just something to think about ….

Thanks Yo Dad. Cheese has its definitely place in life’s palate.

You too huh Sriram. I got one from my bf’s mom this morning too and I usually delete these things because they seem lame but today it brought tears in my eyes. I’ve been feeling emotional about this whole terrible tragedy and seeing the faces of those young students now dead over some senseless massacre is heartbreaking. They are even younger than my little brother. So many things we take for granted.