MUMBAI - LOSS IN TERROR

‘We are hoping she is still alive. Hope is all we have...’
‘I didn’t think I would survive...’
‘I have lost my son...’


I won’t make a statement on terrorism. I won’t talk about the attack. I won’t write about the politics of it all. I won’t share my views on the global crisis. I won’t deliberate on how it may herald the beginning of a change, if at all. I won’t.

I have not read much and I don’t have much clue about what the word ‘terrorism’ precisely stands for. I don’t know the several meanings it may have. I don’t know much about being attacked. I have never been a witness to it or been in the midst of it. I don’t know how it feels to be there at that very moment. I don’t know much about my country, not even about the state I live in to even have a view on what would affect the millions and millions of people around the globe. I don’t know much about human nature, let alone what brings about a change in the masses, what brings about revolution.

But I do know about loss. I do know about how it feels to lose someone you love. I do know how hard it is to believe and to accept and come to terms with the fact that the person, living, breathing, laughing and smiling has ceased to exist in a matter of few moments.

I do know about fear. I do know what it means to be vulnerable and to hang on to hope even in the most hopeless situations.

I do know about regret. I do know when the heart just longs to and wishes to turn back the time and do things differently; to have stayed back at home or to have left earlier.

I also know about the guilt; the ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. What if I had gone instead of her? If only she hadn’t gone!

I do know about death. I know when it comes accidentally or through a lifelong sickness. But I don’t know and I am unable to comprehend how a human being can kill another. I don’t know how we have become our own death.

Perhaps, I will never know. But do I really want to know, when all that I know is more than enough to constrict my heart and suffocate my soul?