I wake up in the morning to find
a troubled sms from Arjun, “Something terrible happened. Newspaper front page.”
Fearing another massacre in the
name of region or religion where me, my friends and my family always
miraculously survive, I check the newspaper. “Assam boat Mishap” it said, “over
200 dead” and I quite surprisingly heaved a sigh of relief. I spent another
twenty minutes evaluating my cruelty and insensitivity. How could I sigh? How
dare I sigh? ONLY 200? ONLY A BOAT MISHAP? Nothing less than a group of militants
or a death toll of 500 will do to invoke a great deal of sadness. It’s a lot
like Kill Bill you see. You scream and claw your skin terrified at the sight of
the first gruesome murder. By the end of it, blood is only red, only some kind
of a liquid that stops churning your stomach. Gore is only a term. It’s all a
psychological mumbo jumbo. You master the craft of avoiding sympathizing and
feeling or getting horrified. Growing up with Khasi-Bengali communal wars,
which alarmed my parents so much, that they dislocated me from my roots much to
my dismay, by moving to a place full of hostile Bengalis because “it is safer
to be with one’s own kind” and in that process, erasing all possibilities of a
mixed community around me (I don’t blame them), I have learnt to grow up an
immunity to face mass death. Because in Shillong, you could be jogging in the
morning when you bump into a body. A dead body hanging from the street lamp.
Beheaded. Or a massively mutilated dead body right outside your door. And as if
mutilation wasn’t enough, the murderers will have shaved the poor fellow’s eye brows
as well for special effects. And you think ohh, another dead body? If it is not death that you read about first
thing in the morning, it is a celebrity’s redundant love life. It’s a bargain
for life. I have learnt to not let it affect my emotions. More dead people.
Ohh. More prisoners, ohh. They filled up the cemeteries and jails. Is that so?
Only one person dead? Not enough I must say!
Arjun texts me back, “No Adidas.
Some management issue.”
[FOR YOUR SAKE I HOPE THAT YOU BEG TO DIFFER]
