Loose nukes

Have you noticed the nuclear-tipped verbiage that is crowding sub-continental air waves of late? Just nuke them, seems to be the fashion ...

Have you noticed the nuclear-tipped verbiage that is crowding sub-continental air waves of late? Just nuke them, seems to be the fashion statement of the moment. It blends perfectly with the gin and tonic being poured out in polite drawing rooms and comes in convenient bite-sized sound bites over satellites.

For every mad mullah out there rattling thermonuclear threats like so many marbles in his pocket, there is an insane swayamsewak chanting, 8220;Enough is enough, now teach them a lesson8221;, as if it is a mantra. One jumps up and down clamouring for a holy jehad, the other screams that it is Kurukshetra time all over again.

Foreign policy experts out there write newspaper articles on how Pakistan may have to take courage in both hands and even press the button if they have to. Our foreign policy experts write newspaper articles swearing that should Pakistan conduct a nuclear strike, India should leave Pakistan in no doubt about its certain thermonuclear riposte.

Their foreign secretary says that Pakistanwill not hesitate to use every means at its command to defend its supreme national interest. Our principal secretary says that India will not hesitate to respond in any fashion to defend its supreme national interest. Hawks out there want to prove to the world that they are not cowards. Hawks out here maintain that we have to prove to the world that we are not eunuchs.

Now Pakistan has done one better and has just told the world that it will not hesitate to use its 8220;ultimate option8221;. And so it goes, this dialogue of the deaf that through a process of degenerative logic could end up as a dialogue of the dead.

Where does all this leave the rest of us, on both sides of the border, who have been rendered voiceless in this unholy din? Well, for a start, we could start looking at the brighter side of nuclear fusion8230;

Just think about it. If nuclear war does break out over the subcontinent, it will be the shortest war in its history. A couple of nanoseconds, at best. No ugly trench warfare, no airstrikes, no body bags, no funerals. All very clean and egalitarian. Everyone gets to disappear into a few grains of radioactive dust.

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Just think about it. Such a war would not require elaborate peace treaties to end it. Our bureaucrats would not have to catch buses and planes to destinations like Simla and Lahore and think up confidence building measures and convoluted, long-winded promises of lasting peace.The peace, in this instance, will come fast and furious and no one will ever have to worry about it being a lasting one. It will, in fact, be an everlasting one with the letters RIP written all over it.

Just think about it. We will be the first lot of people after those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to witness once-in-a-lifetime images like the flash of ten thousand suns before one8217;s eyes or towering columns of dust shape into a giant mushrooms, or perceive our neighbour being nicely vapourised into a shadow on the sidewalk.

Think of the photo-ops and television programmes, the books and moviedeals that will come our way 8212; posthumously of course.

Just think about it. I have it on excellent authority that radiation is absolutely fat-free, is not known to encourage the accumulation of cholesterol in the system, and while it may have carcinogenic properties, no one fortunately will live long enough to suffer their deleterious effects.

Just think about it. We will no longer have to cope with such mundane problems as the rising population and the price of milk and onions.

Just think about it. We will no longer have to worry ourselves silly about whether Sachin Tendulkar should bat as opener or fourth man or whether Wasim Akhram lost that Bangladesh match because he and his teammates were bribed.

Just think about it. Our children will not have to inherit the national debt and, if they are bright, can benefit from these quick lessons in chemistry and physics. They8217;ll get to know all about deuterium and tritium and lithium and about how the explosion of a nuclear fissioncharge produces the temperature and density necessary for the fusion of hydrogen isotopes, resulting in a sudden release of a large amount of energy that produces explosive yields capable of blasting the life out of every blade of grass, every butterfly, every cat and mouse, every living thing, regardless of caste, colour, gender or on which side of the border you were born.