Its a bloody joke !!!

Thirty-two months after an Indian Institute of Technology professor was killed on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science and twenty-four months after the horrifying blasts in the heartline of Mumbai (the local trains), 'terror' returned to the pensioners' paradise that no longer is, shortly after lunch on Friday afternoon.

The question is not why Bangalore or Ahmedabad, but why did it take so bloody long?

Seriously.

Why did it take so long for these smart-asses to set off around twenty bombs just as people were readying themselves for the weekend, when they could have done it yesterday, or day before, or last week, or last month?

The rocket scientists dressed as 'intelligence sources' and 'security experts' are already busy adding one and one and making it eleven: It was a Friday and then Saturday. It happened at 1.30 pm or shortly thereafter. Ergo, you know who was behind them. Those bearded, fez-wearing, menacing-looking guys who procreate like hell, send their children to madrassas, and receive their cheques from strange places.

Any time now, the state government will start blaming central intelligence agencies for not alerting them. The Centre, in turn, will blame some unpronounceable outfit whose benefactors are across the border. By primetime, the prime minister (depending on the toll) will make a macho statement something to the effect of 'We will not cow down to terror.' The Union home minister, whose very sentence-construction sends terrorists scurrying for cover, will pronounce that 'such incidents will not deter the government from pursuing its policy of dealing with terrorists in a resolute manner.'

Tomorrow morning, the Congress which is in the Opposition in Karnataka will blame the BJP which is in power for being interested in anything but governance. The BJP in turn will blame the Congress for revoking POTA and making this a 'soft State.' Editor types will stand up and say it is time for 'moderates' to speak out.

And just when the TV guys were rubbing their hands in glee that something finally had happened to keep them busy over the next 36 hours, bam, the toll is just forty. How do they fill 'We, the People' and 'Big Fight' and 'Weekend Edition' this weekend?

Yes, it sounds all too flippant.

Forty people have been killed in two cities in two days, several more injured, how can we be so joyful and jokey about such a serious 'menace' like terrorism that is 'eating into the vitals of our system' and taking 'innocent lives'?

We would.

If they would.

The truth is security in India is a joke. You know it, the terrorists know it, it's just that our political and administrative and police masters think that we don't.

So, like Pavlov's pups, we are supposed to feel concerned about what happened in the 'IT capital' on Friday afternoon and the 'cloth capital' on Saturday evening; we are supposed to slam terrorism 'in no uncertain terms'; we are supposed to light a candle in our hearts and mourn.

For what?

Truth is we have been there, done that, and bought the lousy blood-stained T-shirt several times before: In Hyderabad, in Bombay, in Delhi, in Jaipur, and not necessarily in that order.

And you don't need rocket scientists dressed as 'intelligence sources' or 'security experts' to tell you that it will happen again in Hyderabad, in Bombay, in Delhi, in Jaipur, and not necessarily in that order, some time soon.

The truth is security in India is a joke. Unfortunately, it is on you.