The Brain that Killed a Mind

This is my account of the Feb 13th Terrorist Blast in Pune. I tried to get it published but in vain. The city papers apparently only publish spam!

My phone buzzed with calls from friends and family. This was the first that this had happened in a span of thirty minutes. The screams of the crowd and the loud music blaring from the speakers were making it hard for me to hear their words. All I could indistinctly hear was, “blast…you ok?”

Then the texts came pouring in, and I was able to piece the puzzle; there had been a cylinder blast at a joint I frequented in Koregoan Park.

Despite the fact that the band was phenomenal, I was distracted by thoughts of the bakery staff; I knew them. Their faces and smiles flashing before my eyes, “I just hope they are not injured.”

Soon, my friends sent word of media reports announcing that there has been a bomb blast. Let me confess that I wasn’t ruling out the hand of a local faction of the political group that has been behind the banning of Shahrukh’s movie. Neither was I ruling out a terrorist attack by a radical Muslim group. It all seemed unreal and the only thing that mattered was that innocent lives had been lost, and I couldn’t contain my tears and disgust at what had happened. It couldn’t be a terrorist attack, I tried to compose myself and called whomever I knew that frequented the joint or resided in the vicinity.

It was quite a task trying to put these horrifying thoughts out of my mind and to enjoy Parikrama. Following the concert, my friend and I rushed to the sight dodging the road barricades. We noticed the mob that had amassed the area with a curiosity akin to ours.

And there it was, or wasn’t; the German Bakery that served as my hang out for the fresh spread of fruit juices and burgers, and the structure that enveloped a friendly ambience, had come crumbling down.

An onlooker then pointed to us a brain that lay partially exposed under a pile of plastic sheets. While I wasn’t carrying a camera, the sight is engraved in my mind.

This brain, once part of a living body, was now left to be exhibited to the press and curious onlookers. While I was sickened by the pool of blood soaking the brain, I was more disturbed about the brain that dissected this one from its body. This creature’s brain clearly had to have been disconnected from his heart, to have not had any remorse for what he is about engage in.

Lives have been lost; at the end of it all, it is not a matter of knowing the victims or not, it is about humanity- a phrase referred to as “insaniyat” in our national language, which binds us all together. But truly speaking, we are all disfranchised from one another.

The culprits may or may not be identified, but the damage has been done and until we resort to addressing the origins of the problem, let us accept that such events will continue to be a part of the fabric of life. Now, it is for us to decide if we will stand by such deep stains, or work together toward a maintaining a spot-free textile.

There is evidently no logic to hatred, to crime, or to violence. Yet, we have grown to accept them as inevitable. But this need not be the case. Violence leads to more violence and peace is never guaranteed with arms. I fear for the aftermath of the event; my gut feeling tells me that we should be prepared for increased animosity between Hindus and Muslims, considering the unfolding of recent events and both groups playing the blame game. This is not to say that we should overlook the deeply rooted animosity between the two, once united lands.

Instead, a dialogue forum is long overdue. I propose one that would offer all political groups and smaller factions the opportunity to chalk out their differences, and this can be done successfully by first bringing to the table, their commonalities. Clearly, this is not going to be an easy task, but let us not forget that no successful peace accord has been a cat walk. Rome was to take longer than a day to be built, but this didn’t keep the Romans from building their empire!

If only the perpetrator of the blast would have stopped and pictured the consequences of such loathing, the brain that lay in cold blood would have been performing wonders.