Show Off

This is the wedding season and as you know that no north Indian wedding is complete without firecrackers. Still, last night, as the fire crackers at the nearby banquet hall started, I just HAD to go out to confirm the obvious, because having been glued to the telly for the last few days, now I’ve learnt that you can’t be sure about anything! And, that’s when it struck me, that whatever/ howsoever we say that we understand what Mumbaikars are going through, it’s very difficult (rather impossible) to understand what the city is staring at.
However, with one senior colleague dead and the fiancé of a young freelancer who wrote for us, dead (incidentally, they were to get married on December 6), I certainly am as much affected by these dastardly attacks. Over the last week or so, driving to office in the morning, even I have started thinking whether I’ll get back home safe. Invariably I end up thinking, whether I’ll be able to play with my recently turned one-year-old in the evening… and then, I seethe with anger. I want to pay back these terrorists. Make them as unsettled, as terrified (if not more) as they’ve made us. I thought of various things I could do to hit back. I made no headway. The more I thought, the more frustrated I became. Slowly, the awareness crept in that I couldn’t do anything. And, that felt awful.And, you know, when there’s something at the back of your mind, it’s difficult to move on. That led me to explore various forms of pay back to these creatures. Some (mostly unreasonable) ways occupied my mind space. Shutting them out, I started thinking what is it that would really make these terrorists mad. Then it dawned on me: You know, what would really get their goat is if we went about our lives normally, or better still did things that we really enjoyed doing. As that would mean that we would be happy and they can’t digest that, can they? So, after a long deliberation, here’s what I decided to do to pay back these terrorists: This evening when I head home (and, many more evenings to come) I’m going to roll down my windows and play my music system on full blast, because that is what I love doing the most. I will not let the Delhi chill (or pollution) deter me because I want to show this miserable bunch that just because they want me to be scared, I’m not going to be. Just because they want to hit out at my way of life, I’m not going to allow them to make me stop doing things that I like doing. I want them to see me having fun. I want them to feel as unsettled when they see me, as I felt seeing those visuals on the telly for those three days. And, I want to tell them that each time they attack us, this is the way I’ll get back at them. Their numbers might in hundreds or thousands, but we’re upwards of 110 crore… and, eventually we’ll win. That day I’ll pump up the amp in my car to a level where my speakers are going to blow and I’ll say cheers to that!They want to tell me who my enemy is, and I want to tell them: I KNOW who MY enemy is. This is MY weapon that I’ll use against them. You choose yours, but do it quickly, because, for us, the war has begun!