11/26. New Cool Date. But, Now What?

I feel extremely jaded writing about this, especially when I am not writing about anything else otherwise, but this just has to be said. Another terrorist attack on this country shouldn’t be that big a deal given the fact that we have one every other month, but then I guess this has gone too far.

The terrorist menace that the city of Mumbai and this country has been dealing with for over the past twenty-four hours just changes the dynamics of everything. I consider myself to be fairly desensitized against information about crimes against humanity, like terrorism for one, as long as personal kin is uninvolved. But with things turning out the way they have, I’m experiencing a plethora of new feelings.

Of course, I’m angry. And frustrated. It is only human to feel those things. But more than anger or frustration, what bothers me is a feeling of helplessness. A feeling that we are being subdued. That we are being personally violated. And that we can do nothing about it. This is disturbing. And I’m horrified.

All recent terror attacks in major Indian cities shared one common facet. To use a cliched expression, they were all acts of cowardice. No, I mean seriously. You plant 8-10 bombs in different areas using anonymous vehicles and innocuous items without drawing too much attention. The bombs go off. You have fled by then. You may get caught later but then that is just a risk you take. On the other hand you may not get punished at all.

This is different. This involves you taking to the streets, hotels, railway stations and other public places with an array of sophisticated weapons in your backpack and a smile on your face. You personally killing as many ordinary people as you can, fully comfortable with the knowledge that you are going down yourself soon. It is one thing to dream of something like this when you are feeling particularly evil, or another if you are playing a modern-day first person shooter. But this is reality – You can’t respawn here.

You can’t be a coward if you do this in real life. You must have serious balls. Either that, or you must be completely mental. Whatever be your reason, this scares me. And it scares everyone, more than it should.

This is scary because it clearly means you are out to get us. And you will not stop at things that human beings usually stop at. What does one do to deal with you? More importantly, what does one do to deal with you if one has the misfortune of being an Indian?

Previously, when we dealt with terrorism, there was this brilliant weasel route available wherein you could trick yourself psychologically. You could berate the terrorists and call them cowards. You could even bring up abstract concepts like the spirit of Mumbai or ordinary patriotism and get this really cool feeling of oneness which basically meant you alone weren’t fucked, everybody else was, too. Back then, tough talking politicos could still manage to temporarily assure you that something would be done, without specifying what. And you would buy it, albeit half heartedly.

But this? What do you do when on one fine evening, twenty odd^[1] people shake the very foundations of your city and continue to systematically rape your collective soul in your fucking face for a lot longer than you would be comfortable with? Kill three of your top cops, just for starters? Shoot indiscriminately at people on the road without any fear for the consequences? Hold people hostage in a 105 year monument, and make you see it burn on national television? Evade capture or death and be at large for a period of over 24 hours^[2] no matter how many cops, army-men or counter terrorists you throw at them? Make you watch the death toll steadily rise over time?

You know this sucks because nothing much can be done. You can kill the twenty-odd people who screwed over your city, but what do you do about the fact that you know more of them will keep coming at you, over and over again?

It doesn’t matter if they are Islamic. It doesn’t matter if they belong to this militant outfit or that. It doesn’t even matter who financially supports them. The only thing that matters is what you can or can’t do about them.

This is a democratic nation of over a billion people. You can’t police everyone. And you can’t deal with the problem at source. What do you do? Wage a war on Pakistan?^[3] Is that even possible? And even if it could be done, what would it achieve? Nuclear standoff?

We do not know for certain if we even have a serious intelligence agency. Most of our policemen and politicians are either incompetent or corrupt. There’s a hermaphrodite with a blue turban that we keep trying to pass off as Prime Minister. All he can do is ask people to remain calm and he’s been doing that for over four years now. No matter who we elect to office in the near future, we can’t say for certain that they would be competent enough to tackle something as complex as this. We can get scared, but what else?

The only sensible thing one can do in this scenario is get a job with the media. And milk this. Or like they advised on a financial channel today, take advantage of the markets tanking and buy stock so that you can sell it during the next bubble. You’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got. Am I even making sense?

This is meant to take nothing away from the brave men and women who lay down their lives or suffer great personal hardships to restore normalcy every-time something this happens. But I don’t see much hope here. Correct me, if I’m wrong. And I seriously hope that I am.

1. Turns out that there were exactly 10 people. Makes it even lamer for us. (↩)
2. The outrage lasted 60 hours. Beat that (↩)
3. Well, turns out you ask your Finance Minister to take over as Defense Minister as a corrective measure. I don’t know how that helps (↩)