Sunday, November 30, 2008

United we stand, do we really?

Wednesday I came back late after attending one of my friends marriage party. I switched on the TV for couple of minutes before going to bed perhaps only to discover that there had been another terrorist attack in Mumbai. Since then I feel extremely disturbed and helpless. And, being a Muslim myself, I live in this peculiar mental state of multi-directional feeling of insecurity.

Tonight I was watching this program at NDTV by Burkha Dutt "We the People". And what I saw, pretty much summed up the conflicting, ever_contrasting mood of the whole nation. In one point one of the guest, Simi Garewal, told something like: If you see the flags from all the slums surrounding the Oberoi and other multi-storied building, you'll notice these are neither Indian National Flag, nor they are any party flag like Congress's or BJPs. Perhaps she tried to mean these are flags of our *neighbouring country*. Anyhow, there was this sudden and furious response from one of the young audience: "Pakistan is not the problem, Islam is not the problem, people like Simi are the main problem..." I was absolutely stunned to see this live. I don't know if the person was a muslim himself. The significance of this show is, it shows very clearly how much united we Indians are!