...

We knew it all along. It always hung in mid-air all around us, all along.
In frenzied television debates. In passionate drawing room discussions.
The news papers reeked of it. Social activists shouted on top of their voices..on streets... on television..everywhere.

In hush whispers and muted voices in lanes where life must have been normal once.. but not since...

In dejection... in disbelief... in disgust.

Its just that.. its now on camera. Direct and in your face.

All those denials that stemmed from disbelief that such a thing could happen....tossed out of the window. All those half-baked self assurances gained from brushing it off as a action-reaction... staring in your face. All illusions of... 'not entirely preventable' theories.... where are you now?

this

Let me also.. address few things that will be hurled at me.. for this.

-Elections are around the corner in Gujrath.
-Congress will take political mileage out of this.
-The magazine and the news channel will sensationalize it.

me:So what?

-Why rake up old wounds?
-Haven't people started recovering? Why instigate communal tensions again?
-Its all sensationalistic crap.
-How relevant is it, today? One has to move on.
-Isn't there a judiciary around..to do the duty? Who are these self-professed torch bearers of justice anyways?
-Political equations have changed... between Modi and his once upon a time followers.. May be there is more to it.. than what catches the eye.

me:All these are irrelevant.

The point is...the same guy still holds the office.
The cases against most of them... are still open.And what judiciary are you talking about. Its a complete system collapse.
How can one move with the very system in place and fully functional.The very same system.. where all you have to say is 'Jai Shri Ram' and the police would let you free on innocents... with a bomb in your hand.
Where the scattered corpses remind them of battle scenes from some holy war.The system where.. as if in some cheap political thriller novel.. the supremo says 'do whatever you want.. you have three days'.
And those very people are hidden.. cases hushed up.. Witnesses threatened...

And.....they brag about it....

It like those lines we read in books where there is a talk about looking in to the face of evil..unmasked and unashamed.
You hear them talk about chopping off an ex-MP... He could as well have been talking about his favourite movie.
You see a man's animated replay of how he slit open a womans womb and threw the foetus in the air.. with almost a relish... a glee worthy of a blood-licking lip-smacking monster.

And one is filled up with disgust. At oneself for being co-labeled 'human' alongside them.

One is forced to think.. that maybe millenia of socialization have really done nothing.. but maybe just camouflage a little more carefully and we still really are ...animals.

Well... you think I am being reactive.. and super sensationalist..?

Sorry boss!!! There is just too much disgust and anger in me right now and if you choose to give it a 'tag'... go ahead!

And yeah!!!.. I write this days after I know of the story. Days after I had the rush to write this.

Coz.. I am not really a believer of acting on immediate emotion.

If you would feel 'less' about it, the next morning..then its not worth acting on it tonight.
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80 lives. And we won't pay his medical bills.