21 September 2008

Terror Past Se7en: is being in 3rd world another sin?

One week is over after Delhi serial blast. Two suspects and one officer are down. 25 families are silent in sorrow and lakhs are still panicked. I can recall the very next working day after the serial blast. It was Monday and normal life was a distance dream in the capital. In the morning when I stepped down from the bus I found a little different CP. Few more police and security personnel were standing here and there, new barricades, metal detectors and tensed faces were every corner. Street children with rose and other flowers in their hand were standing at crossing. They also seemed to reluctant to run after cars to catch some customers for their flowers. The day was cloudy and everything was looking very dull. As I approached towards my office at Caunght Lane through the market, I found the hawkers are in action. It helped me to relax to some extent when I found a few hawkers known to me by face are in same mood. They were calling customers like they are doing from their childhood days, some dull faced foreigners (white skinned people) were watching the merchandise from a distance and we office goers were rushing towards our office. One school going girl was pulling her mother and forcing her to walk in a zigzag manner. While walking through the market I was thinking that who is afraid of terror? Suddenly a sound came from somewhere… some birds start flying from nearby trees and buildings creating noise ….the girl hold her mother’s hand with a stiff fist. …Hawkers stopped their job and started looking here and there…everyone’s ear was trying to listen something…every eye was trying to locate the spiraling smoke in some corner nearby…all these reaction took place within some fraction of seconds…NO! It was not a bomb. A Sudden thunderclaps was the cause of the sound and as we all realized the truth we started breathing … hawkers started joking at each other as how panic the other person’s face was…one said that god is also making fun of us. I started walking normally again with the crowd and some sense of realization was bugging in my head…is it really our spirit which bringing us out of our home after the deadly blast or it is some kind of helplessness? Can we really do anything by staying apart from the blast sites…every soul is afraid of the blast from their inner side but reluctant to show that…every soul is ready to hold her mother’s hand with a stiff fist but not ready to accept that... we all are equally innocent and helpless in front of any similar terrorist attack…It is more of our economic status than spirit which pulling us out of our home. Every time any terror attack take places in 3rd world country everybody talks about spirit but when the same terror strikes some develop country world start calculating the effect of that in global economy and politics. Being a citizen of this 3rd world do we have any other option than showing our spirit? Suddenly my eyes went to the middle aged newspaper vendor sitting next to a pull of garbage. When I asked why he is sitting next to garbage he replied ‘’by escaping we can make our life safe not our livelihood.’’