Pretty much the moment we arrived in Bangalore on our look see trip, I noted the number of guards there were in the airport. It was one of those fuzzy, long day of travel observations, and I didn’t attach much significance to it. Then we arrived at the hotel and they had a gate, guards, a metal detector, and an x-ray scanner for all our bags. The next day we explored some more, and saw many more guards an scanners. During the day when driving in to the hotel and many other businesses, the guards had a mirror that they would use to look under the car and open the trunk to look inside. the trend has continued since we moved here, with us living in a gated and guarded community and many of the stores in the area having guards and scanners at both entrances.

It has done nothing to make me feel more secure, as it took me very little time to see that it is security theater, or something that gives the appearance of increased security, without actually improving security. I have no idea what threat I am being protected from most of the time. The building guards are often jacks of all trades, who perform other tasks in addition to their guarding. It is not uncommon to see them putting away carts or sweeping the floor while trying to screen those entering. When they are not distracted, they often let us pass because they are in awe of the cute lils, or they have seen us before and have deemed us safe. The same goes for the guards that check the cars. They don’t really inspect anything, and often don’t notice anything because they don’t look. I wonder why they bother,

The only person that I know that the securty theater has had an effect on is Woo. Clearly, if there are bars on the windows, guards at home, guards at the stores and businesses, and guards at school, there must be a threat. Woo has ascertained that the threat is robbers, and now asks all the time about robbers, why they steal, what happens if they break in, what would they take, what would we do… the questions are endless. It is clearly weighing on him, even if it is not really scaring him, yet. I am not sure that this is the desired outcome of the increased security presence. It certainly isn’t for me.