Fear ...

I had thought that I wouldn't write anything about the serial blasts we had in Bangalore last Friday. (For those who don't watch tv, or read papers or don't talk to people - essentially those whose sole link to civilization is this blog - 8 low intensity blasts rocked Bangalore on Friday. Many of these explosions happened to be in areas which I frequent. In fact three explosions occured within a kilometre and a half from my house. To make it worse, Ahmedabad suffered a much longer much bloodier trail of bombings on the very next day). I felt that to write about them would give credence to the inhuman act they've committed and to show that yes, we're scared in Bangalore.

But today I realised something. The fear psychosis has actually set in.

I was working out of an office that is near one of the explosion sites and had someone from the online library i'm a member of coming over to collect a couple of books that I had read (seriously, if you're in Bangalore or Mumbai you too can become members of www.librarywala.com . All you have to do is click on the books you want on their website and they deliver it to you, and once you're through they also come to pick it up.).

Unfortunately the guy got confused and ended up across the road and some half a kilometre away from my office. So I decided I'd walk down to him and return the books. Casually walking without another thought I reached the spot. Suddenly, as I was waiting for him to cross the road, I realised that I was standing very close to the site of the explosion. And suddenly a sort of scary film dropped over my eyes. I'm not exaggerating. I realised that I was standing near a crowded bus stop with people moving around with bags and cases and any of them could be hatching a plot for a follow up explosion. I started looking around and thinking I should've just asked him to come to the office.

Then I was carrying the books in a paper bag which looked, from a distance, like a package containing something illegal. It was like a package which would resemble contraband/explosives for anyone grown up on a diet of bollywood.

Finally the guy crossed over and I took out the books and gave it to him, just to make sure everyone around knows that nothing untoward is happening. I had it in my mind to speak harshly to the guy because he's been losing his efficiency and I had to wait for books to be delivered and picked up this month. But I cut that short and quickly moved back and trotted to the office, breathing a sigh of relief as I entered the safety of the doors.

Yes, the fear has set in a bit. And it'll take a bit of time to casually walk through crowded areas where it all happened.

UPDATE: And we cocked a snook at the terrorists! Just came back from watching the Dark Knight at Forum mall. And the place was full. The spirit lives on!