Monday, December 8, 2008

Villains

It could have had been a day like any other.
My dad went to office. My mom did her grocery shopping. B chilled out with friends. M studied for an exam. X spoke on the phone for an hour straight. C, Y and K played hide and seek within their apartment complex. And I, slept on.
It could have had been a day like any other. But sadly, it wasn’t.
Yes, I am speaking about the much-blogged about horrifying day of the 27th of November of this year. There, as hostages were shot and killed, we stayed glued to our T.V sets, blaming the government, the police, the terrorists and the media. But we still watched. We blogged. We posted photos. We discussed the events on online forums. And we started I-too-have-the-spirit-of-Mumbai- groups on social networking sites. We started “Hate Pakistan” campaigns. And then some more.
Criticizing the government which we had chosen.
Hating the media whose every word we listened to, and gossiped to friends about.
We spoke about the spirit of Mumbai, only to get back to work, and our lives the very next, as if nothing had happened.
Then it came to me.
We were the Villains.
There’s a villain in every one of us. In the 11 year old, who hits a girl classmate with a steel ruler. In the middle aged professor who smiles with maniacal glee to see her students suffer. In the old man who kicks the neighborhood dog every morning. In me. In you. In everyone else.