A Crackle in the Morning...

This happened last Friday. I was driving to work, The Black Crowes belting out Hard to Handle on my CD player, me generally enjoying the beginnings of what would turn out to be a very good day. Suddenly I heard a crackling sound. I was instantly transported back to my native place, one dull dreary and hot morning there in the early nineties, when the crackle of gunfire became the new voice of violent death.

Over the years it has become quite a common sound. In those early days of insurgency, however, it really shook our people up. Into fright, and then euphoria, spawning an-almost revolution that had unbelievable grass roots support. Everywhere - market places, schools, colleges - there were banners urging youngsters to enlist, to help secede from the tyrannical Indian government. The premise for such a move was, sadly, not too convincing.

In a few years, the top leadership fled the battlefield. For those that were in there, fighting, the strain of staying away from home, the constant threat of sudden violent death hovering above them, took its toll. In short, stripped of the romanticism attached to a cause, they gave up. The government played its ace in the hole - the option to surrender - and lo and behold! Revolutionaries metamorphosed in an instant to hooligans and opportunists.

Today the sound of the bullet has been replaced by the thump of bombs. Because bombs can cause more destruction. The people are fed up, but what can people do? Spawn another revolution to spank the revolutionaries? No sir, thank you. And so life goes on.

The moment of deja vu is past. I open my eyes and realize that this is Bangalore I am in, not my native place. The crackling sound is not that of a bullet spitting out from a Mauser, but some self-flagellating sadhu who is whipping himself and collecting money. I thank god, curse the self-flagellant for presenting such a grotesque spectacle at nine in the morning, roll up the window, increase the volume, and shift into third gear.