Salaam Bombay

Salaam Bombay

I try so much to think of loving you,

And I fail miserably –

Like the lone child on the street side.

For I cannot see through

Descending acrid smoke of burning flesh

I can’t turn my eyes away from the child –

Its flesh ripped and shred of impact

As he sits there, over the charred remains

Of its inconsequential social connect.

I cannot see how we all are not thus orphaned,

For where I stand – what I see

Everybody has been stripped bare –

Down to the inherited, bestial flesh and blood

I try hard to look through the chaos

Of uncertain lives fleeing in anticipation

I try hard to recollect our dreams, in my mind.

But the smoke stings, it pains so bad – so deep.

This earth, a sky seems unimaginably shattered

And through all this – my dear

I silently cry out loud to you

I kneel before you my beloved.

I pray to you – pull back the reins of time

And put me two moments before

The unforgiven, unwilling child of human wrath burst.

For a moment I will see the child lisp in its mother’s lap.

For a moment I will look up and bid goodbye to you.

Come to me now – my beloved,

For I try so hard to think of loving you.

________________________________

Under the Shadow of Terror

Noise Unlimited

Whatever now remains is like Noise - in its true definition. There are two sides to it.

1. People responsible for their carelessness and unprepared ness - they are generating the noise while curbing the real 'voice' viz. the dictate from the Govt. that media should no more broadcast videos of the attack - is that to keep people from disturbing images or do they know it too well that Indian mind is like black board - a stroke of duster and the chalk of calamity wiped off? Are the resignations, comments, opinions, vague statements sounding like boardroom 'global gyan' ('We will not tolerate terrorist tactics...' and like) worth the hoopla surrounding them? Really, have there been any actionable reactions? Something like, 'we have appointed XYZ to set up a committee which will plan and blue-print for a Federal Intelligence Agency of India', would have meant at least something. I fail to understand how feminine FMCGs could become talk of the hour - lord save the sanctity and sanity of our Media houses. Did they really find, even the person who indulged in such pithy remarks, worthy enough to be splashed over prime time news?

2. People who are subject to these propagandas - they end up taking sides. What have they got anyway? They only have choices and nothing like the best candidate or the rightful leader. They just choose the next best thing and end up where they were by the end of another 5 years. Just like stray dogs - they stray, they are shown the biscuit, they go to the vote machine wagging their tails, they sit waiting like a loyal dog, no matter they get kicked all along, then the 'eater' finishes off and the dog begins to look for another 'eater'. At times they will be stupid enough to follow that same 'eater' around.

The first kind confuses and the latter one is politically, socially and emotionally illiterate enough to be easily confused. In the end we have exactly what my title states and reflect the present state of affairs - Noise Unlimited...

Leopold Back-calculation

Nothing has changed much. People just want to get high before they are on a higher plane. They fail to flatter themselves. It is not that easy. The terror is unimaginable.

I look at these people congregated or rather accumulated at Leopold tonight, and I am unexcited. It is only natural to be egoistic. It is only natural to be nationalistic. But what really matters is – what do you really believe in.

I did my inquisition. The inherent fear of life sustenance is unquestionable (I just hate that I cannot write this in layman’s terms; I wish somebody did). Everybody hid in fear when the firecrackers became gun-shots in reality. I doubt if anyone else would have done otherwise – even with a bullet-proof armor on them.

I wonder what might have happened that day. I can but only wonder. But still, if I have that, I’ll stay with it because that is the only thing I have got to justify myself – about the way I feel. And that is just the way everybody of you reading this feels. So, stop lying to yourself!

Mumbai Burns

I am not Marathi, I am not Mumbaiyya. I am a simple citizen, another unknown Indian, who just happens to be professionally based out of Mumbai. And I feel violated.

I feel I have got everything to do with this calculated inhumanity on display for the last 60+ hours. I have never faced this upfront but now I do and I am going to do something about it. I have to speak out. I am not of that mettle to keep myself closed in the boundaries of a job, a family, few friends and four walls which keep changing.

There a few things that I hate but I hate them unfailingly and it seems it is not going to change for quite sometime now.

I do not accept to live under the shadow of the gun.

I do not want those people walking on this earth who have murder on their minds.

I do not want my near and dear ones to be terrorized.

I do not accept that a country like ours do not have an intelligence net.

But most of all – I hate the lousiness of some people who say, ‘What can I do?’

Money, stature, family commitments, professional pressure, relationships they don’t matter. In fact, when these very things are under fire – I do not believe we have got any justification of sitting back, thanking fate for saving us and waiting for the carnage to get over so that we can get back to work next morning like worms crawling across the dingiest filth on the face of this earth.

I defy those who call this ‘the undying Mumbai spirit’. I call this apathy, indifference and overall irresponsibility as an Indian and as a human being.

More than 190 people dead – that too only officially, three times that injured and an overall atmosphere of unwelcome fear looming ominously over Mumbai. We cannot keep saying that ‘Mumbai has won’; because it hasn’t. The terrorists have won – not once but again and again, and it is about time we put an end to our little day-night therapy sessions over the idiot-box with some politicians and diplomats who have been as irresponsible as us. It is about time we vent our retribution on these maggots.

Terrorists are not cowards. Cowards are only human. Terrorists, however, are inhuman to say the least. They are agents of the virus called terror. Love just won't do.

This is the time when we think, talk and act vitriolic. This is when our attitude should ooze acid against those buggers. I cannot imagine that I have to share the same air with these proponents of the unjust death.

We pride ourselves in unity. I disagree vehemently. We just fake ‘unity in diversity’. There is no such thing, unless we acknowledge ourselves as common human beings, each one of whom has got right to live. And those who don’t have no right to live!

I want to live without oppression – be it terror or in any other form.

I want to live without fear – be it the bullet or the ballot.

I want to live without bias – be it religious or socio-economic.

I want to live free – and my head held high because I know I have done something.