Talks at the lunch table are so generic and so drifting that one can never guess where a discussion can end once begun. Today was an exception though and I had a feeling that I would know how today's chat was going to conclude.
It was just on of those dates: 26/11 or 26 November, that date when in the year 2008 some terrorists set foot in Mumbai and wreaked havoc in the city for 3 nights before finally being vanquished by the law enforcers and the armed forces! Most people at lunch were recalling the events of that night, some with personal accounts of hearing the gun shots and grenades and witnessing the funerals of friends and loved ones. But my table hit a different angle. We explored why this terror attack created such a dent on the memories of everyone. The discourse one found on the media was that of this being the first attack on the elitist class of India with the targeted sites being The Taj and Oberoi and the posh locales of South Mumbai. But my view is that this was merely coincidental to a greater element within the attack that gripped us all: Time and Face.
Most attacks planned and executed prior to this were covert and caused an instantaneous shockwave in the media. But after the initial blast people would gather the pieces and move with their life. The mangled trains and blown off buses and cabs would be cleared, the blood washed off the streets, so much so that if you passed by the place the next day you would no even know the damage caused.
But the anatomy of this attack was different. Its shockwaves were felt and generated hours after the attack was initiated and this attack was made out in the open. Within hours we had pictures of the terrorists wielding guns at CST and on the streets of Mumbai. It is something we have experienced in the past: be it the IC-814 hijack, the 9/11 attacks, the Bhopal gas tragedy or other such incidents. They may end up claiming lesser or more lives but what terrorizes us is the coverage it gets and thus the mind space it occupies.
And this is true not just of trauma but of the good things that happen in our lives. We have become adept at remembering the high coverage incidents and diluting the smaller incidents of our lives. It is our style of classifying and archiving that helps us survive. And that's where I have a problem with it: it merely helps us survive and not live to the fullest extent of our happiness and joy. Which is sad because it is the sum of those little days that made you you! Just as it was the sum of that made us aware of the terror around us. But it took an incident like 26/11 to make a choice: to be terrorized or to stand up and be counted in the endeavour to end terrorism. And that is when we decide what gets more time and face!
