German Bakery

The day after German Bakery blast, I got calls from friends in Delhi to check if I was safe. I was 'safe' and 'insulated' from the happening too.
"Yeah...yeah I am okay. It's not near my place."
There was and still is the disconnect with the blast. Maybe I have got too cynical and fatalist.
"If I have to die, then I will die." Sounds cruel perhaps. But life has not been any different for a decade or so. The first time I really shuddered at the dastardly act, and killing of innocents was the 1993 serial blasts which rocked Bombay/Mumbai. I was 11 or 12 and I can recall and even feel the tensed atmosphere and people watching their backs. After that, I think one sorta gets used to such killings - as long as its not me.
Perhaps the terrorists have succeeded. They have succeeded in benumbing the humane feelings and also the cry for justice. Past reports have shown that none of the terrorists or the brain behind the plan or the mastermind, as they say, has ever been arrested.
Some Mehsud gets killed in Pakistan. Does it stop the killings in India, UK, USA, Israel and even Pakistan? Nope. And, it never will.
I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be? An eye for an eye, but then as Gandhi said An eye for an eye will make the nation go blind. Cynical though I am, I certainly believe in that. Civilians taking up arms or burning with the desire for revenge will not really help. We will lose youth, we will just go back to stone age. Look at Pakistan and Afghanistan - their own citizens are living as refugees. Those who could afford and had the means escaped to other countries like US leaving their own nation in shambles.
I don't want that to happen to India. I don't want destruction, I don't want 'human bodies' living here. I just want us to grow from strength to strength.
I can give no clear cut solutions to others. I don't have any myself. I just want to be able to relive those days when life was peaceful.
I'm referring to the 80s when growing up meant watching He Man and eating mud and cycling and laughing and crying because your sibling beat you or snatched your chocolate. And, not because you have been left behind your sibling. It's not so back in the past. Maybe we can still go back to it. I certainly do.

Comments

  1. Unknown16 February 2010 at 18:10

    Definately i beleive that we should strive hard to regain the peace we had in earlier days, imean the terror free society. One can face war situations in prepared manner on border, but to face the war against human race within country is much more difficult...But looking at present scenario I think we should be prepared to face the tough times also...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ambika16 February 2010 at 18:26

    yeah..true
    wish we could just rewind or go back in time.
    that's not possible so lets hope that sanity wins the war

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: Murder at the Mushaira

Image
Ghalib goes detecting  When presented with 'What if?', the 'scenario' conjures up numerous possibilities making it an interesting proposition to delve in. What if Mirza Ghalib was a detective? Isn't this enough to hook a reader? We bet so. Thus it is with great interest that we began reading Murder at the Mushaira , and we were not disappointed. Raza Mir, the author, toyed with the possibility of envisioning Ghalib as a detective for nearly 15 years. What we get in Murder at the Mushaira is not a racy whodunit, but more than a peek into the life and times of Ghalib, the Mughal court, the nobility and the sepoys who tried to overthrow the East India Company. The novel is set against the backdrop of First War of Independence and it begins at a point when the 'night is too silent' and ends with a gunshot with the horse rider thrown away from his mount. Who is the horse rider and what is his mission? At that time, Shahjahanabad is a city brewing with tension, in
Read more

Interview with Arefa Tehsin

Image
'There was nothing wrong in it,' Dada Bhai said, his head bent towards the cold, unyielding floor. 'Sir?' asked Tapan, who had followed him out, just as he had ushered him in personally. 'A boy and girl loved each other. There was nothing wrong in what Sanaz did. Love. That is what is halal for me.' Valmiki would not be contained, she knew, whenever the news reached him. He would rage within. Waste away in the cavity of his chest. She needed to bundle up all her nerve and pack it inside her. Convey to him soundlessly that he was fortunate to be loved for two years. Two years! An eternity for someone who had not got two whole hours of it in her life.  'A whiff of rosewater is enough...' On Makar Sankranti when the kites soar high, Sanaz' wings are brutally clipped. She is found dead in her room and what follows is a trail of questions hiding violence in their midst; of corrosive human behaviour. The ugliness and degenerate behaviour of the many a char
Read more

From Venus

This is something which I wrote sometime back --- I was never good at Science, so this concept of 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' never made sense to me. Why talk about planetary influences when living on ground...(earth). I didn't think it was a big deal. Now, that I am four months into marriage, the distinction is slowly becoming clear to me. I arrived at this conclusion after some 'minor' glitches, which according to my husband were 'blunders'. Talk of opposite poles attracting – I don't know ABC of cars and their body parts. I mistook fan belt for conveyor belt and the mention of BMW motorcycle set me thinking. I had heard of BMW cars, but what so special about this motorcycle? Then 'Mars' decided that it was time 'Venus' was given some lessons in cars, motorcycles and their engineering – how a two engine powered BMW motorcycle was the best and very rare and is the best example of..... I am not sure if I can recall
Read more