Kartikey Sehgal
The Taj Mahal hotel is lonesome at night. The Gateway of India is sealed. Only gunmen patrol the area. Stray visitors are asked to move away quickly.
The lonesome Taj does not reflect the resplendent mood described in newspapers and magazines, when the 105 years old luxurious hotel re-started its services.
The gunmen are still and wary. They ask me to not go near the Gateway and to hurry with my walk along the area.
Kartikey Sehgal
The Pope has stated that he wants to save humanity from ‘gay threat’. According to him, humankind deserves the same attention as the dying tropical rain forests.
It is common knowledge that the biggest threat to rain forests is ‘mankind’ or humans. And the church has maintained that one of the biggest threats to mankind is the homosexual. Thereby, the church has always kept homosexuality out of the realm of normal sexual behavior. Never mind that it has always existed and that the church is among its secretive followers.
Santa Singh
It is difficult to make friends who are free of any associations. All of us feel strongly for some institution or the other; religion, political party, language and even food.
Let me give you a recent example. A Muslim talked to me about problems faced by ‘his people’.
Ananth Venkatesh
Contests between South Africa (SA) and Australia in cricket have historically been colossally competitive, considering that these two nations are proud of their sporting culture. The ongoing three-Test and five-match ODI series of Australia against SA promises to be exhilarating and delightful for the purist cricket lover.
With 20-20 menacing the two conventional formats of the game, Tests and One Day Internationals (ODI), the confrontation between the two Southern hemisphere rivals is surely going to thrill cricket connoisseurs worldwide.
Notwithstanding the unsurprising ascendancy of India in Tests and ODIs lately, the rivalry of ‘Safs’ and ‘Kangaroos’ has traditionally satiated the appetite of authentic cricket fanatics in the globe.
Kartikey Sehgal
I cannot accept the mirth of trivialities. Of a living below life. I’d rather joke with the honest labourer whose design on the wet brick is hardened by the sun; harmony between nature and men.
But I am given, and society has ordained, the acceptance of rooms without sunlight, precision defined within dark windows and glass doors.
Benita Fernando
Don’t tell me
The palpitating secrets of your shredded heart
I already know them.
Kartikey Sehgal
[The author visits the sites affected by terror and meets some security personnel.]
“I could hear the blasts all night long. I shut the windows and bolted the doors. After all, they had just passed the lanes near my home. They could have come to this building and taken entire residents as hostages.”
She is the wife of an Indian Naval Commander who missed her husband on the night terrorists attacked Mumbai at various places.
Ananth Venkatesh
Terrorism, a poison that has historically maimed a plenteous number of blameless Indians, rocked India once more for nearly 3 days. Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, a legendary symbol of architectural splendour, was targeted by Islamic bigots. The Oberoi-Trident was also brutalised by the bloody insaneness of the terrorists. Mumbai, familiar with such bigotry, had to endure the chilling ramifications of another intelligence blunder and the ineptitude of the law-enforcement machinery.
Kartikey Sehgal
Everyday, around 10 people die on Mumbai local train tracks. But that is not ‘The Taj’. No foreign national comes and kills them. Their death is standard legitimate death. And not sufficient to make headlines.
If a man/woman falls from a train and dies, then the event is deserving of our apathy and disinterest. If a foreigner pushes a man out of the train, then it is an attack worth some media coverage.
Santa Singh
[Gunmen have carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), killing *** people and injuring *** more.] Source
God bless terrorists! Without them, the country is plunged into darkness. Maharashtra is fighting Bihar and Karnataka is fighting Tamil Nadu. Or somewhere in north-east India, separatists are killing tribals. In Orissa, Christians and Hindus are blaming each other for communal tension. When terrorists strike, all these factions become united for a short time. So God bless terrorists.