Monday Musings -25

Last night, I watched the Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor starrer Kurbaan. While some of you may argue the finer points, or even detest the movie altogether, I think Kurbaan had a fine story to tell. The story of how the terrorist mastermind works, of how innocence gets sucked in, and the act of terror itself. It is as if Kurbaan recounted of us, what we wish we could forget.

I happened to watch Kurbaan the same week I have been documenting tales of some affected by the 26/11 attacks, for a short remembrance series with a news wire. An assignment that has humbled me, beyond measure.

So, as I watched Kurbaan I could hear the tears in the voice of Vaishali Omble, the daughter of Tukaram Omble who was killed whilst nabbing lone captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab. After an hour of talking back and forth, Vaishali admitted all she really wanted to do is die. "I would rather die, than live to face all of this," she said. Her mother doesn't step out of the house, her older sisters are married. She has no brothers.

As I watched Kurbaan I could go over the bullet markets at the Chabad House over and over again. It wasn't merely a case of killing those who died. Every little inch of the Nariman House wasn't spared of a bullet mark. Does your God even tell you to kill so brutally, I ask? The moment I walked in to the Nariman (Chabad House) it almost seemed like a thrilling-adventure trail.

But then, I could hear the deeply disturbing voice of a young city Jew, David. He is twenty-two; he saw and held the Rabbi's body. It is sacred to kill a Jew, according to them, he tells me. If you kill a jew, you go straight to heaven. Then, he says, "The Rabbi couldn't be dead. It seems as if he was still alive." But, he wasn't. He wasn't. Just like the names on the memorial that hangs inside the Taj.

As I walked its lobby, I wondered...could everything really be the same again? And, as I watched Kurbaan I wondered could this world we live in change at all? I could only remember being saved from a terrorist attack, the grace of being a compartment away. Each time, I recount the story with nonchalance. I was the one who got away.

But so many others are forced to go on. Forced to go on in "faith that there will be peace on Earth, as it is in heaven." Because, there is only faith to live on. Terror is all around. And, that is all I can think of this Monday.

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