Itch of Writing

The great Indian spirit that was witnessed after Mumbai terror attacks has started evaporating. The fears that I had expressed in my last post seem to be turning true. First it was a zealous part of intelligentsia that passionately argued that the attacks were termed as the greatest terror attack just because the ‘elite’ were targeted. The facts that it was panic on the streets (home of many non-elite Indian) of Mumbai and an ordinary Mumbaikar shuddered to venture out of his home (those who were elite enough to have one) on the night of 26th November were not strong enough a reason to believe that the panic, with an utter contempt for boundaries of class and creed, struck everyone. And now the worst, thought not unexpected, fear has come true – the reactions have taken a communal color. And I am among the first victims. I write this post as a 'Hindu' today. And the person who has helped me don this Hindu identity is a central minister, ironically (?) minorities’ welfare minis...

Coming to study at IIM Ahmedabad meant setting a foot on Gujarat's soil - a state that has been in news for most of the times in the last three years or so, and on most of the times, for the same reason again and again. Of course I'm talking about the riots - a subject that attracted dozens of documentaries, hundreds of editorials, thousands of news articles and millions of murmurings. And so when I arrived at Ahmedabad airport, a mix of excitement and curiosity grabbed me. Excitement that I was going to be a part of an institution that was inarguably the best in India, and curiosity to find out how much "ground reality" was there to all the documentaries, articles and murmurings. Well, in the last 20 days that I have spent here, I have not been able to find out much. In fact, I've hardly made a conscious effort to find out or talk about the riots that took place in February-March 2002. I've moved out of IIM campus either to buy something for my personal ...