“Seat number 19 yahi hai?”
Half asleep at 4 in the morning, his eyeballs pop out as if I was a progeny of some extra terrestrial family. He nods, rather uncertain.


I travel by train for the first time all alone. Draped in casuals, I look around my coach and brace myself for a tedious twelve hour journey. It’s an unusually empty coach for a holiday season. I adjust my luggage in such a way that the thief would find it a wee difficult to flee with. I stand up. Proudly look at the way I squeezed my luggage. My phone rings to a jarring tone, butchering whatever sleep my 50 odd year old co-passenger sat with. He glances adroitly, trying to make it not so obvious.
Eavesdropping has its own side effects. Especially when you practice it on a one sided conversation.

“Hello. Yeah. Ho gaya! Don’t worry. I’m set. God bless.”

I sit back and glance at my watch. I bask out a gentle smile and look outside the window. I sincerely start searching for a mirror as my co passenger gives me the queerest of looks one can. I seem to be fine. At least till date no one really had much of a problem with my face structure.
I think of giving him a break from his horror morning by stepping down on the platform for a sip of tea. He shudders and sits upright. I feel like telling him that his eyes could blink too. He observes me from the door as I sip my second cup. His eyes, still wide open, occasionally glancing at my luggage. Now was he a thief or was he just mad? The latter seemed a better guess. Probably the railways have some concession under the mentally handicapped quota. I wonder if I could apply for that too. May be I could in my next train journey because at the end of this journey, he’d sure make me mad.

I do an Archimedes as I crush the plastic cup. I think he thinks I’m some anti social element! Anti social element just sounds better than a terrorist, doesn’t it? And my luggage has some kind of explosive which I’d detonate drinking tea. Who the hell explodes a bomb in an empty train at four in the morning?
Trust me. He was definitely not in the frame of mind to answer that.
I try to make him feel easy as I walk into the train. He follows me warily. May be I was a suicide bomber to him now. I zip down my sweatshirt. Not because I was feeling hot but to show him that nothing’s really strapped to my 28 inch waist.
The train chugs in full flow and so does the fear of the latest terror victim.

For a change, I felt comfortable being on the other side of fear. It wasn’t long back before a city I resided in was terror’s new home. My stomach curdled when I saw the same places I’ve been to so often blown to smithereens. All dreams, aspirations and hopes get jittered with a press of a button. The feeling is unexplainable but the fear is. But who’d listen?

In an era where the young Indian is forced to ask himself if every firecracker explosion is a terrorist attack, something is genuinely wrong somewhere.
So whom do we blame for this insecurity? The government seems to be the best bet. And who forms this government?

Democracy. I’ve heard that somewhere.
From D for democracy, we’re reduced to D for ducks. Sitting ducks to be precise. When a nation can be shaken by a few men within a few minutes, what’s the whole purpose of a democracy? When we choose the wrong people to lead us, we’re responsible for this prevailing situation. But still, we love blaming the government. The blame game seems to be in our blood. Might as well make it our national game.

The recent trend after every terrorist activity is first condemning the attack, calling the terrorists cowards and then lighting up candles, Rang De Basanti style. The last one is a big hit. A really good way to come in the news.

Personally, one of these shows almost made me miss a flight as the roads get jammed by “angry Indians”. My driver aptly summed up the situation – “Kya Nautanki hai, saab.” That’s an honest Indian speaking. He’s angry – not because of the terrorists, though but for his evident selfish reasons. And he’s no different from those thousands holding ply cards and bloating about unity. Would the same swarm of people walk on the way they are if a couple of men strapped with an AK-56 start spraying bullets at them? I don’t think so.
What’s the big deal if people turn out on local trains the next day of the train blasts? Here are people who can’t afford a personal vehicle and need to go for work to earn their bread. They really aren’t making an impression on the terrorists and showing them that “we are not scared of you.” It’s just media brood. Ask anybody on those trains and he’d wish he had his own alternate source of transport. That’s the truth and the faster we accept and digest it, the better it is for us.

So what’s the cure to this sarcoma? Flushing out the terror yolk seems to be the best. Easier said than done but somewhere down the line we need to make a start than waiting for things to pan out themselves. Someone has to pull up their socks than just breathing easy claiming that there hasn’t been an attack in so many years for the silence is the growth of another pending disaster.


My friend jumps onto the platform even before the train comes to a complete halt. His date with insecurity has just got over. He lives to fight another day. Or wait. May be I can rearticulate that as – he lives to survive another day. Sounds more realistic, doesn’t it?


- Rahul Mansur