200 killed in a country of a billion and a half. Big deal? I have heard people condemning the rest of the resilient us waking up the next morning, forgetting about the previous day and walking to work. What is wrong in it? I mean, isn’t it wonderful that you are alive and breathing and getting to see what unfolds? Isn’t it wonderful that you are getting to blog and comment and appear smart about the whole thing? Isn’t it wonderful to think that the air you are breathing might as well carry the scent of blood the next moment and that you are privileged to breathe now? What is wrong then in living and sleeping and waking up and going to work when you get to? Can you be sure you are not one of the 200 in the next blast? I can very well imagine 199 of those 200 thanking God and going to work the very next day after the Ghatkopar blasts, after the Gateway of India blasts, after the Mulund blasts, after the ’93 blasts, just like us.

This is precisely called slow poisoning. You kill 200 in a country of a billion and a half and it hardly matters. The agendas are met and not a feather is moved. You see every man worth a dime commenting and appearing smart, every channel theorizing brand new theories till they get enough air-time to fill their pockets and every politician condemning the acts and seizing the opportunity to gain precious political points. This goes on for a week or two and then suddenly everything takes a backseat and everything is forgotten because its elections at so-and-so. So what is wrong if I wake up the very next morning and go on with my life than be a mere hypocrite?

The whole attitude, though, is like thanking heavens for letting you live for just one more day or a minute. Being a reasonable being, one would rather value his life and take control of it than live at the mercy of heavens. But how and when does one begin to value his life if even such incidents don't move as much as a whisker? What is required here is a shock so huge, everyone becomes a victim. So that there's no space left for resilience, no place to go and nothing to do but revolt. Revolt for our own lives and for a change. A 200 people here and a 50 people there, dead or alive, don’t bring about a revolution or even a minor change, quite evidently.

Instead of doing your fireworks here and there, why don’t you nuke us, fellas? Why don’t you, for our sake? Some place where it hurts a little less but which would shock us out of our pants and make us get to the road than to work. All of us.