A casual conversation at a posh upscale begging-joint in maximum city ; a few days after its siege ,between our men, pappu langda(PL) and matinee show(MS) :
PL: oh dedh shaane ! dargella tha kya goli barood se ( oh halfcrack , got scared of all the firing ?) dint see you the next day here back at work? Don't you know as mumbaikars we are duty bound to do so after every terror attack ?
MS: haan bidu , that famed Mumbai spirit and all ! magar apun se nai hota ye sab ( i cant manage all that ). Saala i was scared to even open the door of my shack !
PL: wasn't your shack broken by raj bhaiya's Marathi manoos in the riots last month ? aur waise bhi, fikar nai karneka , is baar ka bomabom apun ki bambai pe nai , unki Mumbai main hua hai ( and anyways nothing to worry, this time the bombs not in our bambai but in their Mumbai )
MS: theekse samjha na be, ye sena navnirmaan sainiko ne Mumbai kabhi baant daala? ( explain properly when did the sena navnirman sainiks divide Mumbai?)
PL:kya be half ticket, ye sainik aam aadmi ke rakshak , aur kamal dhaari neta log kuch kar paate to apun ki mother india kabki akha world ki mother nai bengelli hoti?(oh dimwit! Had these sainiks, common mans protectors[congress]and the lotus holding politicos done something wudnt india have been the world leader by now?)
This division too , like most of our public works these days , has been done by our terrorist brothers from across the seas .

MS: ?????????
PL: simple hai na yaar ,didn't you see how they killed , gunned down people blasted grenades all over Mumbai , par apne ko kuch hua? Is baar ka bomb was for these rich baba log from Mumbai . not us faceless occupants of bambai.
MS:haan, i did see all that live on tv. Many goras died too. Our cst station too was attacked i heard though not many spoke of it. Barkha behen was more worried about our icon , some taj being damaged . what was that about?
PL: kaisa icon , kiska icon ?have you ever even been allowed to beg opposite to the taj hotel to call it your icon? Remember Mumbai-bana-shanghai evicted us out of our liucrative begging syndicate at the taj-colaba corridor? The division of Mumbai started then , it just got finished now. Added to that now even the cst wud be made out of bounds for us common man .
MS:oh ya ! i gues thats why mantriji said on tv that such small things keep happening in big cities. I am sure he must be aware that bhai log with guns were just completing a pending work right ?he kept his cool for the greater public good ...
PL: even if he didn't know he didn't have much choice. His bad luck this time the rich and famous died , including foreigners. It was obvious mantriji would have to leave mantralaya! No wonder he grabbed his last chance at 15 mins of fame on national tv live!
MS: hmmm, acha nowthat you seem to know so much , care to explain how different was 26/11 form jhaveri bazaar or the local train blasts?
PL: simple hai na bidu ! those were in common man's Bombay, where aam admi died. Aam admi bole to the faceless , address less who just count as heads for vote lists .so a weeks chattering is enough to forget and move on , cause not only is the common man highly fertile in increasing his numbers , he also is extremely resilent in the face of adversity.the mumbaikar is back to work the next day each time else bambai would stop. And bambai ruka, to india jhuka!aam aadmi is supposed to take it all in his stride.
MS:and this time?
PL: this time the big people are hit . all those mercedez Porsche items have died or got hurt . they would be mourned for months to come . they aren't know to be resilent like us. So their tragedy would surely be avenged. Their grief is NEWS . no wonder a sudden national "anger " and "need for change" is being felt all over mumbai now .
This ,when a hundred died that Wednesday, while thousands died a noisier unmourned death each time before ,. The terrorist bhai log touched their mumbai this time , their city . there has to be retaliation.
MS:oh to ab?
PL: well ,lots for them, not much for us ! neta log already got changed, its another matter one scoundrel replaced another.india ka image got tarnished abroad , so i hear they gonna bomb Pakistan soon . i think sau ameero ki maut hazaaroo gariibo ki maut se zyaada shor karti hai
mumbai main( death a hundred rich people makes more noise than that of thousands of poor in mumbai.) sab sunenge ab to( all would take heed now).
MS: aur apun ka kya ?
PL: apun ka kya ?we carry on in true mumbai spirit. Business is brisk these days with the newshounds all over. Take a tip, grab ure chance to be on tv too, just tell a camera guy that some one in jeans and t shirt gave u a pakistani rupee in alms on Wednesday! I got on to india tv that way in the morning! Till the next time bhai log remember to finish pending work in bambai, we can make some money . cause this time mumbai is under siege

i have always wondered how it wud feel. after the "deed" that is . i mean have always heard of people "doing it" all around me, all keep taliking and raving about how good and nice "it" feels, how wonderfulo a "deed" it can be, and how essential and basic to mankinds nature "it" is. and finally, i "did it".
as a child , i didnt know much about "it". the age of innocence just goaded me to think that all i did was wats there to do in life in thsi world, that the things i liked are the things all like. neither was the deed discussed nor thought about in the puritan and conservative household that my home is. na , its not that brahmanical in ambience , but we are brahmins nonetheless, so out of the window go taboo subjects like "the deed". so till i guess i was in college , life without it was the only life i knew! none i know of at home did it, nor were they interested in it.

though a teenage full of constant demarches to stay away from "it" added to the charm oand mystery attached to the act , i never quite had the guts to jump roght inot "it". like many other teenage fantasies fuelled by raging hormones, this "deed" too took the form of the forbidden fruit that adam was asked not to touch , but tempted nonetheless. guess i was waiting for an eve to tempt me fatally into the act ! aah, this even more made me imagine myself out there actually in the act , enjoying every single moment of it.

as teenage made way for a more hedonistic hormone-homeostasised adulthood, fresh young blood of mine took a moralistic approach to the forbidden fruit of yore, making me think that wat i didnt succumb to as a teen, neednt entice me now as a mature adult ! how wrong i was , for i forgot that after all i am aman , and men are supposed to folly at the slightest hint of temptation , especially if it is a long desired one! this period , marked by a constant fight deep inside me , about the moral pros and cons of doing the"deed" made me also rationalise the act in logical terms free from the baggae of moral evils that my upbringing had forced me to attach to the whole idea. so as i realsied that all my friends all my enemies, why for that matter everyone around me was into the act, like it was the most ntural thing to do aas a human being, iw as the one left out , with a self imposed ban on even remtely associating myself with something so demenaning and wrong to do as "the deed". unbrahmanical , i wudve surely been dipped in boiling hot oil in the court of the mighty yama.

but finally, i have given in to the temptation. the forbidden fruit has been bitten! and eve has taken control of the innocent man's future. pandora opened the box with the heavy lid of morality once again, this time to unleash god knows what ! and yama has just raised the heat under the cauldron marked for me in the after life. yes , after 25 years of living a celibate and chaste life on this eveil infested earth, i have done the deed!
i just ate my first chicen kebab roll from the college canteen!

i hope yama doesnt get too upset!