AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

        Yet another bomb blast in the heart of a bustling city in India. Yet another group of victims whose only crime, if you get down to think about it, is maybe that that they were all citizens of this country. The nation is aghast. Suitable sympathetic tut-tut noises are made. The media makes seemingly threatening sounds and pontificates on the security lapses. The State's Chief Minister makes vague utterances about the fingerprint of foreign hands on the trigger. The country's Prime Minister and the Home Minister make their perfunctory platitudes, which condemn the crime (and are naturally described 'heinous' or a suitable and severe sounding synonym is used), appeal for calm and tell the terrorists (as if they are listening) that they would never succeed in fomenting communal trouble inside this country. The opposition parties, too, call for resignation/bandh/demonstration/nationwide rally (tick whichever is applicable). But soon, and very soon, the deaths are forgotten, reduced to mere footnotes on the blood-splattered pages of this ever-unfolding tragic narrative. At the end, only the emotionless statistics remain: 110 in Mumbai, 28 in Varanasi, 42 in Hyderabad. The country, meanwhile, gets backs to watching puffed-up reality shows on the telly. The pause button is pressed only when the next inevitable blast intervenes with its gory immediacy, which is X numbers in Y city.

        This is perhaps the only country in the world which has been consistently reduced or even debased monumental human tragedies to the level of a pointless charade. Tragedy morphs into a comedy of the absurd. And by the looks of it, no one is bothered all the same. A depressingly soul-less response to a heartless act of terror and tumult. No other country has paid such a high price of terrorism as India has. But this is no Baghdad or Kabul or any other outpost of battling battalions. India is an established democracy with the third fastest growing economy in the world. In such a country, bombs to go off like daily-sheets off a calendar is a shame that the government cannot live down. But the government has never shown even the slightest realisation that it is responsible for the life and the safety thereof of its citizens. Giving solatium to the victims' family after a tragedy, in a sense, adds a touch of crudity and vulgarises the whole equation. This is not an argument against financial compensation for the grieving families (they deserve at least that).

        But what kind of system it is which puts a mere financial value to its citizen and fills the gap with cussed currency. It is a shocking and gross show of abrasive apathy.

        To blame Pakistan at every turn is futile. The terror groups, of whatever acronymed identity (LeT, HUCI, SIMI), may have taken training in the territory of the antagonistic neighbour. But the actual cataclysm happens only well within our borders. The government of the day hence cannot escape by merely pointing an accusing finger at the foreign hands. And as every explosion shows, the nation's response has been dispiritedly timid, vague and vacuous. The terrorists have not been sent the message that they will be hunted down (wherever they are) and made to pay the price for their butchery by bombs. George Bush may be a reviled figure world over and seen as a warmonger. But after 9/11, he chased the 'enemies of US' and put the fear of God in them. Bush's methods maybe arguable, and India is no US. But Bush truly showed what Manmohan Singh and all the other previous Prime Ministers of the country failed to: A nation's government is responsible for the security of its citizenry. There are no soft or hard States. There are only governments which have concern for its people and which don't. India doesn't need to be told to which category it belongs. And that is why Mumbai, Varanasi, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad have become itinerant stops for the touring terrorists. If as a nation we are still not roused, life has little meaning left in it. War and weapons should not be recommended. But terrorists know no other language.