Bombay

“Mumbai Meri Jaan” is the strain of thought reverberating across the length and breadth of the nation. It is not the first time any place has been so badly held siege. History is rife with twin/triple bomb blasts, people dying, limbs missing sometimes entire bodies, families ruined and all that. Recession seems so minor at how the financial capital has been hit on the spine. No place is safe, there is a method in the madness, high-end places to train terminuses nothing was spared. The disturbing picture on the front page of today’s TOI is frightful. Aggressive terror out on the streets, Hemant Karkare fell victim to the bullets of cowards despite warning and there was no forward support as such for the radical officer.

There are chain mails of outburst, sympathy, anger and disillusionment. The youth is so motivated with the Jaagore campaign to vote and be the change. With infrastructure comes the luxury of the will/desire/expression to do something for the nation. They want a system overhaul. You and I know it is not as easy as it seems. Voting is not impacting as much as we are led to believe. You want martial law, you want dictatorship, and you want a system clean-up. All good and noble thoughts but why do things get dormant in peaceful times? Fed on Bollywood and jingoism, we want to exterminate militancy but we have bottlenecks like human rights, international law and the jazz. If it was as simple as cleaning your house, it is cleaning your house. Some people don’t like to clean their house everyday, some do it half-heartedly and some do it maniacally. Trusting our senses and holding each other hostage with fear, being careful and frantic calls and prayers have taken the flavour away from life. Imprisoned in our crabby ecosystems with earning quick bucks or more and wanting to be seen in good light, being stand-offish and indifferent, we are fast turning into a race of pseudos. A renaissance seems to take birth and die only in the mind for that 15secs of fame.