It was Sunday 30th of November 2008 the evening light was fading fast; I had spent most of the weekend glued to the television set like millions of others watching in despair, anguish and horror; the mayhem of insanity played out with guns and grenades. My eyes moist as the thought of loosing so many of my country men and women in the Mumbai terror attack kept hitting me again and again. I was struggling to come to terms with the trauma, the feeling of being vandalized, ravaged by a band of mad men.
Wanting to run away from this feeling I decided to take a walk to the jogging park close to my residence. As I walked to the park in the cold evening breeze everything around me seemed to be affected by the terrorist attack. It’s a mind game I said to myself. The scars of the past week were predominant and that was perhaps leading to this gloomy perception said the voice within. Everything I saw was tinted with the same pair of glasses one had anger and the other despair in them. I decided to sit down at the park bench to take a breather. As I rose my head to gaze around I realised that the ground had plenty of kids playing as is usually the case on a Sunday evening.
My eyes then locked on to a bunch of kids about the age of 10 playing to my left. They were running in a chaotic manner making a lot of noise. One of the kids who looked rather bullish caught my attention. With a deliberately bloated chest he was chasing the others with loud screams or more aptly put imitations of growl much like a lion. This certainly brought back a welcome smile to my face.
Kids will be kids I said to myself. Just then I heard the boy changing his growl to a peculiar innovative ‘thoo’. A plump well dressed lad he was with sneakers on and a jacket over his T-shirt that had a teddy on the front. From his actions he looked more like the last action hero from one of the popular cult action movies. His fingers and thumb were joined as if imitating a pistol as he went around chasing the other rather hapless kids with his random ‘dishum-shishum’ and ‘thoo-thoo’. The kids ran around in all directions trying to flee away from this urchin as it were who had a finger pistol; all of course in good fun. And just then they ran towards my bench and were running around it trying to flee Master Dishum-dishum! So much fun I thought to myself as the kids continued to run around the bench I was seated on. I wish I could join these kids in their fun and games. And as if trying to prod them to let me play along I caught hold of master Dishum as I will call him! Hello there dear, I said to him what are you playing? Can I play as well? I asked him with a beaming ear to ear smile.
Of course master Dishum quickly responded with a blissful innocence on his face. We are playing Terror-terror uncle. I am playing the guy from the TV with a gun and my friends they are all the people trying to run away from the bullets in my gun -dishum dishum. If you want to play you can run too and I will chase you with my gun- come! Suddenly the expression of my faced changed completely; my heart sunk listening to his innocent rhetoric. I let him go with out saying a word. The kids were back at their game with master Dishum chasing and the others running and screaming as they disappeared to the other end of the ground.
I sat there motionless almost frozen in shock. This was the world that we are to give to the generation next. My heart felt the tremors of the big earth quake. We had to change this. My eyes frantically looked for the mater Dishum and his friends; I wanted to tell him that this was a bad game that he would never want to play. This was not how everyday life was supposed to be. We were not senseless barbarians killing under some pretext; preaching and practicing violence and hate. We were about Life. And life was about peace and harmony and love and hope and respect for all of Humanity rich and poor, strong and weak young and old!
Wanting to run away from this feeling I decided to take a walk to the jogging park close to my residence. As I walked to the park in the cold evening breeze everything around me seemed to be affected by the terrorist attack. It’s a mind game I said to myself. The scars of the past week were predominant and that was perhaps leading to this gloomy perception said the voice within. Everything I saw was tinted with the same pair of glasses one had anger and the other despair in them. I decided to sit down at the park bench to take a breather. As I rose my head to gaze around I realised that the ground had plenty of kids playing as is usually the case on a Sunday evening.
My eyes then locked on to a bunch of kids about the age of 10 playing to my left. They were running in a chaotic manner making a lot of noise. One of the kids who looked rather bullish caught my attention. With a deliberately bloated chest he was chasing the others with loud screams or more aptly put imitations of growl much like a lion. This certainly brought back a welcome smile to my face.
Kids will be kids I said to myself. Just then I heard the boy changing his growl to a peculiar innovative ‘thoo’. A plump well dressed lad he was with sneakers on and a jacket over his T-shirt that had a teddy on the front. From his actions he looked more like the last action hero from one of the popular cult action movies. His fingers and thumb were joined as if imitating a pistol as he went around chasing the other rather hapless kids with his random ‘dishum-shishum’ and ‘thoo-thoo’. The kids ran around in all directions trying to flee away from this urchin as it were who had a finger pistol; all of course in good fun. And just then they ran towards my bench and were running around it trying to flee Master Dishum-dishum! So much fun I thought to myself as the kids continued to run around the bench I was seated on. I wish I could join these kids in their fun and games. And as if trying to prod them to let me play along I caught hold of master Dishum as I will call him! Hello there dear, I said to him what are you playing? Can I play as well? I asked him with a beaming ear to ear smile.
Of course master Dishum quickly responded with a blissful innocence on his face. We are playing Terror-terror uncle. I am playing the guy from the TV with a gun and my friends they are all the people trying to run away from the bullets in my gun -dishum dishum. If you want to play you can run too and I will chase you with my gun- come! Suddenly the expression of my faced changed completely; my heart sunk listening to his innocent rhetoric. I let him go with out saying a word. The kids were back at their game with master Dishum chasing and the others running and screaming as they disappeared to the other end of the ground.
I sat there motionless almost frozen in shock. This was the world that we are to give to the generation next. My heart felt the tremors of the big earth quake. We had to change this. My eyes frantically looked for the mater Dishum and his friends; I wanted to tell him that this was a bad game that he would never want to play. This was not how everyday life was supposed to be. We were not senseless barbarians killing under some pretext; preaching and practicing violence and hate. We were about Life. And life was about peace and harmony and love and hope and respect for all of Humanity rich and poor, strong and weak young and old!
Mirror- Mirror on the wall,
Who’s the terrorist of them all?
Mirror-mirror on the wall,
No terror or terrorist be ever at all! ....aam admi
Who’s the terrorist of them all?
Mirror-mirror on the wall,
No terror or terrorist be ever at all! ....aam admi
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