Five young people at a fashionable restaurant with plans to bring in Valentine’s Day together! She was looking forward to her weekend with her boyfriend- would he propose on Valentine’s Day? He had just got a promotion at the bulge bracket investment bank where he was working. His sister was thrilled that her big brother had driven down to celebrate his promotion with her. Her friend returned early from her sister’s engagement so she could bring in Valentine’s Day with her friends.
Five young people. Well educated, smart, vivacious. Happy. Would they have laughed so hard if they knew there was a bomb ticking in a bag under their table?
"The blast at a packed restaurant in the western city of Pune left nine dead, including one foreigner", said a newspaper report. Can words ever communicate the real loss?
Five lives cut short in their prime. Four families that will never be able to come to terms with the tragedy. Another city that has lost its innocence.
Is the purpose of terrorism to kill, or to ensure that those who survive live in fear?
9 comments:
Nice flash fiction. Good question at the end. I assume you write about the restaurant on Val. Day because of where you went yesterday?
ann
This is so sad. You're right about the purpose of terrorism. We can't let that keep us from living our lives, or they win, but it sure is sad when they succeed at something like this anyway.
I do believe you're right about the purpose: to make people live in fear. This reminds me of a terrible news event I saw on television. In Nigeria, asking innocent people to fall to the ground and then shooting them. I just don't understand.
@Ann: Sadly, this isn't fiction. This is what happened in Pune on Sunday. Three of the youngsters were from Kolkata, a brother and sister and their friend.
Given that life is so uncertain at the best of time, those who deliberately disseminate murder and mayhem fall into a category of evil beyond belief.
What a sad story - even sadder that it's true. I haven’t figured out the purpose of terrorism. To me it accomplishes nothing. It’s simply murder of innocent people for no reason.
This was so terrible -- Acts of terrorism that hit in the places people usually go with no fear is truly monstrous.
Thank you Rayna.
What we must never loose sight of is that each of these numbers is a person.
It is time we humans began treating each other with humanity.
"Terrorism" today is a developing concept... much like Media's developing concept of news. For example, anything that has once been a story on the network ceases to be a story-worthy material. So what if another boy drowns, media wont waste time because the first boy who drowned already got all the footage reserved for that topic.... Flash forward to "Terrorism"... to my mind, terrorism today is less about ideology but more about shocking people into taking notice of "Terrorism" in newer ways...
In a globally consumeristic society like ours, definitions are changing fast... No commercial organisation (including these terror outfits) wants to be left out of the Business for want to Advertising... and Ads like the "German Bakery infront of Osho INTERNATIONAL" serve as a Global Business Card. Go Figure!
Disclaimer: these are my views and in no way intended to display my disrespect for those deceased... afterall, they could very well have been mine too...
@ Ann - I wish it was flash fiction. Unfortunately, it actually happened. Nine lives cut short, and nobody is even sure why.
@ Tami - hard to live with terrorism, isn't it? Why we can't just respect each other is beyond me. If we like ourselves, it should not be too difficult to like others.
@ Sonia - senseless, isn't it? What do they gain? What do they prove? What went wrong to make them this way?
@ dipali - they are the embodiment of evil. Those kids were so full of life. They shouldn't have died the way they did. And I can't stop thinking about the mother of those two.
@ Jane - even if I acquire all the wisdom I possibly can, I am sure I will never understand what drives people to kill in this senseless manner.
@ Al - a third of the people who died in Bombay in Nov 2008 were Muslims. Which religion are the terrorists supposedly fighting for? Till we start respecting each other, there seems little hope for us.
@ Manasi - you do have a point. Couple of years back, targeting middle-class markets on festival days was the flavour of the month. When that failed to get sound bytes, they attacked the Taj. And now a whole new city.
Which perhaps is why I feel so safe on Bombay's trains- terrorists are unlikely to strike there again.
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