We Got To Stand Together!

When the terrorists struck Bombay he was not aware of that; he was thinking about the Hartal which was going to be celebrated
in his God's Own Country! He was thinking about the chances of another couple of Hartals, the National Festival of the Keralites!
But, when he got the newspaper next morning, he new some terrorists had holed up in some hotels in Bombay and they had killed
more than 100 people and injured more than 300 people.

He eagerly devoured what was written about the terrorists and sighed heavily reading there were no Malayalee Casualties,
which was specified by the local daily. He read about the boat which came from the Porbunder Harbour, Hotel Taj, Oberoi,
CRT, Nariman House(with no mention about why Nariman House got attacked, as somebody wanted to cover the reason
behind the attack on it) and some other places. He re read to confirm that there were no Malayalee casualties; he had been
doing this 'Confirmation' ever since Iraq invaded Quwait, when the local dailies faught with one another to 'Inform' people that
there were no Malayalee casualties! In those days, he even thought how accurately Iraquees make the Malayalees move away
from the places they were going to bomb, and how concerned the Iraquees were about the Malayalees; at the least it seemed so,
by the reportage of the Malayalam Dailies, which regularly competed to Inform that there were No Malayalee Casualties, day in and day out!

The next day he read the newspaper to find out that there were Malayalee casualties. Someone died in Taj hotel in the massacre
was a Malayalee, from another district. He thought, "There are no casualties from Our District"; and read on the gruesome methods
adapted by the terrorists, in the killing of the hapless and innocent victims. When he read The NewYork Times he understood that
the persons (If they can be called persons at all) who did this heinous act were an "Audacious Group of Gunmen" and they were just "Militants fighting for the disputed land of Kashmir". He failed to understand why, when the terror strikes America it is Terrorism and when the same happens in India it becomes Militancy and the cold blooded terrorists become "A Group of Audacious Gunmen"!

The very next day the newspaper informed him that one of the Malayalees died in the Bombay Terror Attack was from his own district; he read about the unlucky fellow's life history and about his family; he thought no one from His Own Village was there......A thought of relief passed through his mind......He continued to read that India had been listed in the top 20 dangerous places to visit by 'One of the Most Intelligent and Sane U.K news papers'; he failed to recollect wheather this same Sane Newspaper listed America,when it had its own 9/11 and U.K, when the Irish Terror reigned Briton in the seventies and eighties, among the top twenty dangerous places to visit.

When the next day arrived, the newspaper informed that there was another Malayalee in the casualty list and he was from His Own Village;he was almost shocked to read the familiar name of the man from his village; he remembered some of those incidents of past where the martyred man was involved and a couple of occasions when he met him, in person; but he had a relieving thought that none of His Own Family Memebers had become a casualty and No Relative has been lost in the act of terror....

What he and all the people who read newspapers and gathered pieces of information, from each and every nook and corner of India,
who sighed with relief as they learned no one of their close relatives or family members were casualties of the Bombay terror attack,forget is each and every innocent person killed by those heartless terrorists are "Somebody Else' Close Relative or Someone Else' Family Member" and more than 150 precious and very much loved lives had been extinguished in a reckless act of terror.It is time each and every Indian stand, in every sense, very close to the bereaved families, who had lost what each of those families had considered the dearest in their lives. It is time, we all Indians think and act in the best interest of the Nation and become the boundless oceans of empathy towards those who had lost what they had cherished and loved best in thier lives! Let us all keep the memories of all those precious lives lost in the heinous act of terrorism, in our hearts, and stand above all the cast and creed and politics and be the brothers and sisters to those families who are deep in the oceans of grief.......Let Us Be The True Indians......Once & For All...!