It was the July cloudy sky of Bangalore. A regular post lunch session in office. People were gearing up for their evening meetings and reviews. Everything would have remained the same except for the news which broke out soon.
Despite so many serial bomb blasts in India during that time, a bomb blast was still not routine news. And a bomb blast in your own loved city..!!!.. it wasn’t a news which would not have created flurry of responses and worry over all the faces around…
The one feeling which was dominant that afternoon was; “Anxiety”.. Hordes of anxious people were busy over their mobile phones trying to get more info about the places where bombs exploded.. The count of casualties.. The safe routes to their homes.. The traffic jams situations...
Not surprisingly, the mobile phone network got jammed soon.. People were back on their desks, checking news sites on internet for further updates..
My parents were visiting me in Bangalore during that time and I was worried about their safety.. And they off course were apprehensive about my safe return to home..
After every few minutes someone would get up and announce a place where bomb blasted: “One blast in Madiwala bus stop” … and then lots of people would get up from their places..
” Oh Man.!!!.. I take bus from Madiwala Daily..!!!..” ,
“ God..!!. Today Morning I passed from there..”..
“ Hell..thats my friend`s pick up..”..
All of us had reasons to worry about.. worry about ourselves, our families, our friends..
News kept coming for different places.. Like everyone else, I was alarmed at the way , the security of the city was breached .. I got up from my place and was moving restlessly.. I started imagining Madiwala bus stop, from where I used to pass daily, full of blood and dead bodies.. The recent Jaipur bomb blast images were so fresh in everyone’s mind and all of us were shaken by the thoughts of seeing our own city, meeting the same fate..
“Kormangala” ..someone said.. and yet another rash of emotions.. Fear, Worry, Concern, Anger, Hatred, Helplessness..
I don’t exactly remember how long it went on.. But it went for quite a long time before someone got up and said .: “ A Blast in Eskon Temple..”..!!!!...
Suddenly the air became thick…An attack on temple isn’t like an attack on bus stop..it has got more significance ..!!.. it symbolizes an attack on Identity.. A “Particular” Identity..!!!.. An identity which was not inclusive of me..!!!
And suddenly a realization rose and fall within me.. I dint have anybody coming to me like earlier and telling me this news. I just overheard it. And after that I overheard other things. I looked down and felt lots of people around me. Each one with a Raised Finger .. “Your People”…”Your People”…!!!!!.... The Accusation turned into Allegation and then Conviction..!!!... From a victim I became an Accused and then a Convict…!!..
I looked down in guilt and asked myself…” My People..!!!!...Those Killers? …!!!!!!!!”
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The news of blast in Eskon temple turned out to be a rumor and Bangalore bomb blast didn’t damage the city even an iota of what bombs in Jaipur did… But the question lingered in my mind for long… Was those raised fingers, a reality? Or just the reflection of my own mind..!!.. How did my mind engineer that guilt feeling..!!.. Did the guilt appear from nowhere or was it the fruit of some unwanted crop which grew inside me through last few years… I wouldn’t say that I got any certain reply of the question… it still lives on and occasionally rubs me from inside.. And whenever it does hurt, I look back to the time when I dint have disturbing questions to struggle with….
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I was a coward kid. I was scared of sounds. Loud Sounds. So obviously Diwali wasn’t a happy occasion for me.. Every year it would become more painful with the appearance of my uncle. My father’s younger brother ..
We lived in a rather small town. The number and variety of firecrackers available there, were limited.. And people, off course, had limited money to spend on it..
My uncle would visit us every Diwali and along with him would come a Big baggage full of firecrackers..!!! .. He lived in the biggest city of the region and had no kids of his own.. So he would spend his Diwali vacations with us.. And since my elder siblings, a brother and a sister, loved firecrackers, he would bring a big lot of it with him.. :-( ..
Diwali, for my whole family, was a yearly occasion in that sense. They plan all the ‘fun’ for this time of the year.. During those days, as soon as the day tilts on the eastern side, the firecrackers would come out of the baggage..
We lived in a government colony with only a single Muslim family house. ”Our`s.
And ours was the family which would fire maximum number and maximum variety of crackers on Diwali..!!!...
Like I said I was a coward kid, I would lock myself inside a room, cover my ears with pillows and wait to hear the next sound of cracker..!!.. Like all kids I was curious but reluctant.. I would pray that they wouldn’t fire a loud cracker and in anticipation, I would remove the pillow from ear and would have a loud sound of cracker suddenly at that instance itself.. I don’t know if anyone else cared about me between all the fun but My Father did. He tried few things to distract my mind… few toys, few chocolates. But what worked for me was a colorful light decoration. So we had our house decorated with colorful bulbs and funky rope lights on Diwali..
We used to have our Koran learning classes in morning those days.. Amidst all the Diwali fun, we predictably wouldn’t get time to learn our lessons and would need a valid excuse to pacify our rather strict Maulana Saheb.. With Uncle being around, we were never short of very reasonable sounding excuses. But before that we would need to clean all evidences of our fun-time of the previous night.. So During those times, whenever we would have our fire-cracking spree the previous night, we all would get up ‘early’, which incidentally would never be ‘early enough’, the next morning and clean the whole compound from the remains of crackers being fired the previous night..!!... Those absolution sessions used to be even more of fun time… we all would rush from one corner of the compound to another corner, hitting each other on the way, sometimes so hard that our efforts of collecting the ‘evidences of our sins’ would get undone .. we would quickly do it again without wasting time in any argument over the accident.. And amazingly, we could always clean the compound just in time and without leaving any traces.. Because I don’t remember any occasion when our Maulana Saheb were doubtful of any mischief of previous night…
And then Diwali vacation would end. Uncle would go back. Fire-cracking sessions would wait till the next year. Lights would come off.
But lights would have more chances during the year.. Eid would come after few months and lights would come up .. And then Milad-un-Nabi, and lights would come up again..
That was the time when our house was lighted on Diwali, on Eid and on Milad-un-Nabi ..That was the time when Fingers were not raised. That was the time when guilt was not born… That was the time when identities were not exclusive.
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