Tomorrow is another day

It has been a black day today. As visuals and news about the siege at Mumbai’s hotels permeates through my living room, I am filled with despair and sadness. Sadness; for all the mindless tragedy that is unfolding, for all the innocent people held hostage, for the families of our police officers, the celebrated faces as well as the unknown men who have been matyred.

Terrorism is hateful and terrorists are the scum of the earth. I find it hard to conceive what drives these men, what ideologies they believe and live by. To see young men so blinded by religious hate and bigotry , stooping to such cold-blooded, planned, mass murder is scary as well as shocking. Honestly, I am myself surprised by my irrational sadness and fear. It isn’t as if Mumbai is new to terrorist attacks-we have had enough of them in the past too…I think the answer lies in the “we have had enough” phrase, in the sense of déjà vu’, the sense of hopelessness. Truly, in this case, familiarity doesn’t breed contempt: familiarity breeds fear.

News channels have said it’s the worse attack in India till date. Though they were speaking in terms of numbers, I somehow feel that the psychology of it hurts even more. It was an attack which began at night and then it raged on throughout the night when people were unaware and blissfully asleep. I feel guilty about dismissing the initial reports as hyperbole, for believing that things would settle down in an hour or two with some expendable collateral damage. I feel guilty that while such happenings were unfolding outside, I was cooped up all-night within the closed air-conditioned confines of my room, more bothered with trying to tick off ‘Topics to be read” on my list for my exam. It was only when my Mom woke up at 3.30 a.m to see the TV and as news of deaths of the ATS chief himself along with other key aides filtered through; I realized the enormity and the scale of the attacks. While I swotted, Mumbai burnt.

I feel bad for the families of the police officers. Nobody could have ever imagined that a response to a late-night distress call could have such horrific circumstances. It was only yesterday morning that I had seen Hemant Karkare speaking to the media and then to know 24 hours later of his death was disturbing, to say the least. Same holds true for the deaths of the other top-brass. These were men, highly trained and highly reputed and if they could be shot down like that, then it underlines how even more vulnerable we all are.

The hotel Taj has always been a landmark of Mumbai. Many people, including my relatives from Orissa on coming down here, in the early Nineties, would go to see the Gateway and then marvel at the hotel Taj. People have been known to sit in the till-now free-for-all lobby of the Taj, gape, gawk and then go back home with stars in their eyes. The Taj has always been synonymous with the glamour and allure of Mumbai. But as the dome of the Taj burnt, as smoke and dust swirled around, it metaphorically seemed as if even my hopes and dreams were being reduced to ashes.

Yes, Mumbai has always been the city of dreams. 22 years ago when my Mom came to the city as a new bride from a small town in Orissa, she was considered lucky by most friends and well-wishers. But now, most parents have become wary of sending kids here, partly due to the attacks and partly due to MNS propanganda ( But let me not digress into that story). People have always emigrated with high hopes to this city, believing nothing is impossible but this has virtually been a death-knell for us. As Sonia Gandhi has put it rightly, ‘It’s not only about security, it’s also about prestige”. I think the usual noises will be made about “the spirit of Mumbai” and all that but I think it is all pure bullshit now. I think, this time, average Mumbaikars like me have been tested beyond the limits of endurance.

Politicians have started descending like vultures, making the right noises at the wrong time as usual. But frankly the security lapses are deplorable. This isn’t the first time nor will it be the last time. These terrorists crossed the international borders at the sea unintercepted and they sailed right below the noses of the Coast Guards and the Navy undetected to arrive at the Gateway. This only highlights the loopholes and the deficiencies that exist in our border patrolling and the entry-exit checkpoints into the country. If exclusive places like the Taj and the Trident with their well-oiled security mechanisms could have been rendered so vulnerable to infiltration and internal attacks, then spare a thought for the other rowdy, crowded public places in Mumbai. And to add salt to our wounds, we have e-mails from these terror outfits mocking our inefficiency and the bitter reality that “the Army and ATS do not have the weaponry to deal with ours sophisticated weapons”.

Now I am not an analyst. I don’t know and neither want to know the hows and whys of these attacks, the funding, the finances, the brains and the technicalities. All I care for as an ordinary self-respectable citizen, is an assurance of safety, the right to live without fear and the right to plan for innocuous things like an exam-ending celebration, a lunch date, a movie outing with friends and other such simple pleasures.

But is wishful thinking right? Because it is a war brewing out there right now. No easy solutions and no easy answers. In the last hour or so that I’ve spent typing this out, the situation outside still remains unchanged like over the past 24 hours…everything is in a limbo while we wait for a reasonable resolution with bated breaths and anxious eyes. In the meantime, there’s nothing much we can do except hope and pray, wait and watch…

All of you, reading this keep your fingers crossed and be safe…Take care and God bless.

P.S. Please think b4 u comment

Strange Memories

I think I wouldn't rate them as top 10 or something, but they are truly kind of the most weird things that have happened to me. Of course, some of these things would seem downright boring to some readers. But compared to the rest of my life, these stand out pustules on the palm.

1. I was once on the street with C and S, when eunuchs came and attacked us. C, being a male, was actually bear hugged by one of the eunuchs while S and I escaped behind an auto. C, has never told us how much money he paid the attackers for freedom and hates us till today for ditching him.

2. I once had a blue colour gola and happily finishing it, boarded my usual local. One woman, stared at me for a while and then asked me. "Kya aapko pata hai? Aapke daant blue hain."

3. This one runs along similar lines. When I was playing on the road in my adolescence. "Kya aapko pata hai? Aapne dress ulta pehna hai."

4. I was waiting on the railway platform, sitting on a bench, reading something. This absolutely shabby beggar walks up to me and tries to see what I am reading with his hands behind his back. I could not shake him off and he followed me from bench to bench. Eventually, I left.

5. There is this mentally unstable beggarwoman whose behaviour is uncontrolled and she randomly boards and jumps off trains. For some strange reason, one day, she stood next to me and hit me on the head with an empty plastic bottle before getting down.

6. One day, there was a large breasted bai sitting opposite me in the train. Suddenly, I was shocked speechless when her left boob started flashing bright light. She then dug her hand inside her semi-opaque blouse and took her cell phone out and started talking.

7. Once when I was bathing , my short-sighted eyes noticed dirt floating in the bucket of hot water. I thrust my hand inside caught a beautiful live wriggling lizard, brought it close to my useless eyes, realisation struck too late, shrieked for a week's worth.

8.I was once sitting, in the hostel study room with R, completely absorbed in what I was reading. Apparently, that day, the BMC workers had come for fogging the hostel premises for the malaria season. We were calmly studying when enormous amounts of blinding white smoke started coming out of all windows engulfing us. Shrieked again. Laughed later, though.

9. Another train one. I was travelling with M this time. A little toddler with pustules on his face was picking at them. M alerted his mother who laughed it away. The little guy deviously dissected a large pustule. He examined the peeled skin in his hand for a second and then popped it into his mouth. Yuck.

10. I 'll write the tenth if I remember something . Its too late at night for me.

Yours Intestinally

After four and a half years of examinations and highstrung nerves, I have finally come to identify the only sensitive organ in my body... my intestines. Apparently, the Almighty wired my nerves a little weirdly and most of the neurons in my brains seem displaced into my intestines.
The autonomic nervous system innervating my intestines are closely linked to my limbic system, my emotional centre.

As I reached adulthood, I recognised my inability to feel happy, sad, angry, disappointed, anxious, surprised etc. and wondered whether I was born into Nirvana, something people ache for but never attain; no matter how hard they try. But this spectrum of emotions was perfectly conveyed to my bowels year after year, which I have just recently learnt to recognise (ever since I strayed into a medical college). I know there must be many such mentally insensitive souls wandering in the bleakness, being incessantly accused of having unfeeling hearts and I hope my frank revelations help them read their own minds.

Generally, a phase of regular bowel motions is suggestive of contentment. It is accompanied with audible gurgles at pinnacles of happiness, something my friends are completely used to by now. The gurgles are usually accompanied with a sensation of peristalsis from right to left at the upper abdomen. This will help you to differentiate happiness from hunger; the latter is accompanied by static gurgles felt in the left half of upper abdomen.

Negative feelings with violent fluctuations manifest as diarrhoea. The most important being anxiety and nervousness, especially just before exams (or similar events where the next few hours are determinants of your fate). The attack usually occurs acutely and you have to rush to the loo that instant or perish. (Which is why I have all the loo locations on every floor and departments of KEM hospital on my fingertips, in case you ever need help, call me.) Anger and hatred manifest similarly but with a hint of nausea. You have to repeatedly experience them to outline the subtle differences. Also, anxiety is the best purgative. So, if your bowels feel flushed out and all empty and hollow at the end, it is more likely to be anxiety than anger.

Phases of life marred by disappointment, discontent, low self-esteem (eg. Greek God asked out the Hot Babe and he doesn't even know your name) manifest with irregular, untimely, ill-formed and for some unfortunate souls- foul smelling stools. Boredom and a passive life with deterioration of intellect manifest with constipation and/or painful defecation. These individuals also don't respond to anxiety and anger and are referred to quacks such as medical doctors for treatment. Surprises manifest as blink-and-miss phenomena such as a quick burp or wind from the other end (better missed... hehe).

Jealousy and envy, one of the most rampant feelings in med-school are wired into the stomach. Heartburn continuous or intermittent is diagnostic. No amount of antacids, syrups or tablets, can cure it. These individuals again end up with quacking medical doctors.

Complicated emotions like devotion, admiration, caution are permutations and combinations of above given manifestations. And yes, of course, the most complex emotion, reproductive love. I wouldn't comment on it, as it remains one of the few I have not yet experienced. And when you do, please tell me the exact presentation. Who knows, I could be dumb enough to overlook it just because I took a laxative!