Dad, is it the Lashkar?

8220;Dad, is it Lashkar e Taiba?8221;, asks my eleven year old daughter with casual nonchalance. I feel a strange sense of disquiet engulfing me.

8220;Dad, is it Lashkar e Taiba?8221;, asks my eleven year old daughter with casual nonchalance. I feel a strange sense of disquiet engulfing me. The dreaded terrorist outfit allegedly behind the Mumbai massacre has become a household curiosity. The repercussions of 26/11 are gradually sinking in.nbsp;The electronic media has collectively jumped on the 8220;9/11 platform8221;. Of course, what we saw was horrendous, but such smart packaging also suited their immediate objectives.

Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said on 15th August 1947: 8220;There is a moment which comes but rarely in history , when we step out from the old to the new , when an age ends, and when the nbsp;soul of a nbsp;nation nbsp;long suppressed, finds utterance8221;. It is time for India to express itself. But to do that it will have to find it8217;s soul. South Mumbai will have to discover it too. South Mumbai has never understood life beyond Reliance AGM meetings, gold prices, Bollywood drama, restaurant-hopping and endless partying. But it is time for the commercial capital to take its politics more seriously. Did Mumbai need to experience 26/11 to understand the gross violations of Raj Thackeray on his own fellow Indian citizens? But the truth is, they were conspicuously silent, in fact, many secretly espoused his divisive philosophy. Now they send sardonic sms messages about Thackeray and applaud the multi-regional hue of our Black Cats. nbsp;Did they forget within one appalling night that the slaughtered Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar were all gutsy brave Maharashtrians? Blatant hypocrisy at its regal best! 26/11 is an opportunity for us all to bridge differences and bury hatchets, and do away with petty parochialism.

26/11 in a way redefines 8220;resilience8221;. Because resilience was always a clever and convenient invention best suited for five-star story-telling. nbsp;Society columnists waxed eloquent, because the victims were cab drivers, migrant labour, local train travelers, poor shopkeepers, the clerical staff, in short, the suburban float. They invariably came to work the next day following an adversity because they had no choice. It was their helplessness then, it will be their helplessness now. But this heinous madness has destroyed that resilience myth by targeting India8217;s well-heeled. Death is a brutal equaliser.

The problem with Indian electronic media is that they believe they run a parallel government, and are quasi-activists. But just by holding public darbars and looking constantly distressed, voices emanating out of choked throats does not quite address the issue of Bihar floods, does it? Or farmer suicides? nbsp;The fact that political establishments have to now raise the performance bar is indisputable, but we should stop vilification of our entire political culture.

My daughter8217;s friend just called her. Her father owns Cafeacute; Leopold 8212; the first port of terrorist call, where she saw him amidst bloodshed and AK 47 bullet shots. nbsp;She also lives in close proximity to Nariman House . Fear, blood, death, revenge, hatred, destruction. These are all she hears. She is all of 12. nbsp;Can we imagine the psychological scar, the imperceptible emotional stain, which can so easily become perpetuated on that fragile frame? The impregnable walls of the Taj may have withstood the mounted attack. But what of the vulnerable mental fibers of those youngsters who saw the cruel carnage on real time television? nbsp;India8217;s real success will not lie merely in creating crisis infrastructure, military and commando preparedness or pre-emptive security checks. It will lie in winning that battle-field, that little space in a spotless young child who is our future.

Sanjay Jha loves Mumbai and lives in its southern precincts