Rahul’s 99%, Bloodied Diamonds and Guinea-pig Children

He is so stupid. Why did he say that? Now? Rahul Gandhi made the mistake of in some circuitous way accepting vulnerability and in a manner of speaking, one hopes, accepting responsibility:

"It is very difficult to stop every single terror attack in the country. Terrorism is something that is impossible to stop all the time. But 99 per cent of terror attacks had been stopped due to strong vigilance and intelligence efforts.”

There is the usual hoo-haa. It demoralises the force. (No one mentions sniffer dogs.) It means anyone can come in. (No, it means more people can come in because we have porous borders and enemies within.) It means the government has no spine. (It does not for other reasons, but do we want a war?) It means politicians are ignorant. (Quite a few are, but check out how many insurgent groups are inside our shores and how many governments help them along.)


For those who have been crying for accountability, Rahul Gandhi’s statement can be read as such, and I hope he does not say he was misquoted. It does not mean the government must not do anything. It only conveys the facts as they are in countries that are as fractious as ours.


I am surprised he said something like this, though, and did not let some syrup drip out of his mouth.

Right corner of TOI's masthead a day after - a headache?

Are politicians the only opportunists? People were bending down over bleeding bodies of strangers. The city was alive to helplessness. Or so we thought. Until the cameras closed in on hands rummaging in pockets looking for diamonds.


Cameras dripping with rains captured the sorrow and the anger. It was raining tears from hair. Umbrellas do not convey pathos.


Computer graphics twirled many times over, large white chunks like ice blocks in bold font dated: 26/11 – 13/7. This is history. History that you can reach out to, archived like loose leaves where autumn is spring.


There were no terrorist attacks before that. Remember. What you have not seen extensively on television does not exist.


Anupam Kher was talking about the common man and not “socialites”. He was among them in November 2008. Those same people who were talking about the fucking spirit of the city as they came out are now asking, “What resilience?” It is unbelievable. Have they really changed even if their chants remain the same against the powers that hides their power? Bhaag, bhosdi ke, bhaag. That’s the gut reality. D.K.Bose is in fact a successful mofo, an internet trawler downloading mishit doi cum.


Studios were trussed up for mourning. I did not watch the khabardars and the vardats, where men and women scream about “Hatya”, murder.


Kher was representing the Mumbaikar. He sometimes represents the smalltowner from Shimla, sometimes the Kashmiri Pandit. He can represent anything. He was also representing America. See how after 9/11 nothing happened there and they finally killed the man who perpetrated it, he said. I liked perpetrated. It sounded good.


V Balachandran, former cabinet special secretary, wrote in the Times of India:

After 9/11, the US totally re-oriented its earlier internal security doctrine of placing responsibility only on government agencies such as FBI and state police. It found out that 100 different departments, including private infrastructure, communications and transport bodies, had a vital role to play in internal security. So, the DHS set up joint management centres across the country, enlisting all these agencies in deciding strategy and implementation of all aspects of internal security, especially terrorism. Regular training exercises are held by them.

All very good. But, has anyone bothered to check how many attempts have been made at all on the US? What America did was to make people strip down to their socks, to generate hype and, worst of all, to order pre-emptive strikes only because it was afraid. The US was safe because it was hitting other countries. Osama will get Obama the votes. Maybe.


But, the US model is a mirage. It looks nice, but isn’t there.


Everything sounds good on a rainy day in Mumbai.


No, wait, it does not.


Mumbai Mirror, the city newspaper, reached the nadir of opportunism: 

“Bogeymen, monsters and unnameable made children of the last generation wet their pants at night; this generation has the terrorist. Omnipresent terror has weighed on young minds and we asked them to put a face to it.”

They put up those paintings with descriptions by the children. How can anyone do this? Do we want this terrorism to stay to sell our papers, our TV shows, our souls?


The paper had the gall to pontificate:

Reassuring is the fact no faith or race was associated with the terrorists - they were just male adults, with shades of feared teachers and a job that involves explosives and bombs.

A child's work

Here are a few descriptions:

• That's his blood on his clothes. Women terrorists plant bombs and men terrorists shoot people. Terrorists are in their 20s.

• Terrorists are from foreign countries and are jealous of us — of how big Mumbai is, how we live peacefully and our big buildings. That's why they want to take revenge and attack us.

• They kill and want others to kill too. That’s why they call the good, bad; and the bad, good. They are uneducated that’s why they kill others with guns and bombs.

• A man is planting a bomb in a school. He is a little tall and his job is to blow up places and kidnap people. 9.30 is the time on the bomb which I saw in a bomb-wala movie. He wants to kill every one. If I get scared about terrorists, I close my eyes and go to sleep.

• A terrorist looks like a very scary man. In my drawing, I have made a train station because I think that is what they want to attack. He looks ek dum kala. He is a tall man who is bald and has a thick beard.

• Terrorists are bad. Like pure evil. He has big ears, sharp, evil eyes and a mole. He’s dark and of medium height. He always attacks people.

All the negative emotions and stereotypes are there. You want to talk about innocence and make them regurgitate your fantasies? This is beyond sick.


Bhaag...and puke. 

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Updated, July 16, 6.58 PM:

"Why did you use that word? If you had to you could have just added dots." I got this in the mail. Let me explain. It is a Hindi cuss word. I used it deliberately. "Bhaag, DK Bose, bhaag" is a song in the film 'Delhi Belly' and it is a cleverly used so that when it is repeated fast it sounds like the cuss word I mentioned. I am not Aamit Khan or a socialite and I was exposing hypocrisy at several levels. There are people who want to curse the shit out of politicians and won't use the word as it is, even with dots. Besides, cussing does not solve the problem. But then, who wants to?

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My poem 'Blind' written in 2009 still seems relevant.