What equates terrorists and disgruntled employees? It's a question which has gotten stuck in my mind after a recent incident. This may be a long shot. I am writing about an experience where I felt a connection between two incidents separated by almost 1000 miles. I may be completely wrong though.
A day after angry workers sabotaged Maruti's Manesar plant, I was with my friends in Mumbai sitting in the food court of a mall. As is always the case in Mumbai, the huge rush made seats impossible to get. But then unusually we had around three quarters of seats free in a flash.
The executives of a renowned Pizza chain began banging all their vessels. As I looked at them, I realized it was a prank they were playing and having a hearty laugh. When I turned around, almost all of the food court had been vacated and everyone began to move out. Their faces spoke volumes of what they were thinking as they suspiciously looked at the pizza counter and left the food court. When a day ago you read about disgruntled employees burning alive an HR manager, you would fear an angry employee as much as you fear a terrorist. After all its you life to lose.
I then realized what it would be like if 1.2 Billion people lived in perpetual fear. Fear that something terrible would befall any second. Fear
of life's unpredictability, not because of your own actions but someone
else's. Fear that your loved ones may get hurt every time they step out
of home. Fear that there is not a safe place, everything is
ephemeral due to some fanatics choice or an angry mob's indiscretion.
I
have always been an optimist. Living in a city like Mumbai right through 26/11 and surviving , you really have to be an optimist to come back to the city again and stay. But off late, I have become more and more skeptical about living in Mumbai or for that matter any big city. The reason is fear.
A day after bombing is CP in New Delhi few years back, I was at Thane Station and was petrified that the dust bin five feet away may explode any time or the train to VT that I was about to board may never reach VT.
With incessant terror attacks, our core has been softened. The proxy war has actually achieved its objective. We have become a nation living in fear. No place is safe, not luxury hotels or railway stations or parliament even. The objective of the war was to embed this feeling in our minds and they have hit bulls eye in the course of 23 years. Now India thinks circumspectly. We are always cautious, always on tenterhooks. Anything off normal and our radar springs into action. Then be it a cantankerous Pizza shop employee or a suspicious man with a huge rucksack.
