Hassled in Hyderabad

Friday afternoon on a hot May day. Mecca Masjid. An explosion. And suddenly everything’s changed.

Not just for the people who were unlucky enough to be within range. I speak for me, for any commoner who walks down the street with a carefree attitude, whatever time of the day it is.

Or at any rate, used to.

Because such is the state of affairs at the moment, that the real impact of any such event runs deep and far beyond the actual toll, both monetary and otherwise. Because from now on, whenever I walk down, anywhere in Hyderabad, I will feel a bit tense, suspicious of anything looking even remotely out-of-place. The city, which has been my home for close to a year now, has suddenly donned a more hostile caftan, and the mosters-under-the-bed assume life. The denizens, who I never elevated to a close-to-my-heart pedestal, for some fault of theirs, will never even take that position, for no fault of theirs. The usual detachment exhibited when walking home at 12 in the night will be replaced by surreptitious glances and furtive looking-around, even if it is slightly after 10. Because I had planned to go to a movie at 9 today, after work, but now, suddenly, I am wary and I decide not to.

News starts filtering in as the day wears on towards its end. Heavy jam at Erragadda crossing. Buses burnt at Sanath Nagar. Some hush-hush voices even speak of another bomb going off at RTC X-roads. All of this might be true, or all of this might be a figment of imagination. It really doesn’t matter. But situation as it stands today, I won't ever able to nonchalantly ignore any bit of such news.

I typically read the newscast atleast 9-10 times a day, because I always have this urge to be informed. And as the news filters in, more and more websites get updated with the news of the latest blast, media isn’t behind in reminding people that the blast wears a cloak of suspicious resemblance to the ones in Malegaon, 31^st Sept. Insofar as me, a news-reader, is concerned, the resemblance is far more than just the type of bomb that was used. The resemblance is in the panic feeling that this has set off. Resemblance is in a sinking feeling that whatever I think, I can never be as safe as we think. Resemblance is in a sad, numb and lingering emotion that I can never truly adopt my own countrymen as my own. That, at the end of the day, things might come to pass when it is each (wo)man to himself. That, sooner or later, a country that, despite its troubled past, boasted of a communal harmony far beyond any nation with such diversity can even dream of, ends up in a state when trusting a neighbour might call for uncalled-for innocence.

Yes, there have been bigger bomb blasts that shook the world. There have been greater atrocities that shook our collective conscience, time and again. There have been more sensational and daring attacks on human congregations, and human spirits. With no disrespects intended to the affected, and purely from a quantitative point of view, this one’s far from it. But this one is closer to home. It may not be a collective worldwide conscience, but my own is enough to trigger panic bells that never before clanged.

Here in Bollaram, clouds gather. It is windy, and the evening has cooled. The poly extrusion machine rumbles on. The 11KV transformer whirrs. Life goes on. But something has changed. Back in Secunderabad, bus stops are empty and traffic is scant. Marredpally main road wears a deserted look. Hyderabad will never be the same again.

Is it ‘they’, or is it just ‘us’, the anonymous office goer who only wanted to enjoy the 9 o’ clock movie and stride into his house at midnight, all without batting an eyelid about what lurks around?