You will feel it too...

When I was in school, my Sanskrit teacher hailing from Punjab would often talk about the bloodshed that was partition. She would mock at India's description of its freedom struggle as non-violent. It instilled respect, painted a picture of what freedom struggles must've been like, in my mind. But I don't think I really empathised.
When at BITS, I befriended two girls from Kashmir - one Hindu, and one Muslim. They expectedly had radical views on all that was going on, and little affection for each other's faiths and identities. But they described with almost an exactly similar degree of pain, the bombings and shoot outs, that were a regular feature of their visits to the bazaar. "Haan, kabhi kabhi bomb phat thi hai, tho dukaan mein ghus jaate hain, 1-2 ghanton ke liye.", one friend casually mentioned. It hit me, just a bit. It must be scary to live like that I thought. I had come sympathy. But did I really understand how they felt? Perhaps not.
And then, the constant debate and discussion on the Mumbai blasts. And the usual spiels that followed, on Mumbai's resilience. I love Mumbai. To me, the whole story was purely romantic. Heroic. Here was a city, teeming with people, that just got up, picked its spirits up, and continued living. Never mind a string of blasts now and then. Wow! I said to myself. But did I really realise what it took to live that attitude?Not quite. But this, I realised yesterday.
When suddenly over dinner, friends mentioned there had been blasts in Hyderabad. Come on! Bomb blasts? In Hyderabad? Must be some stupid home made bomb by a bunch of naxals who lost their way from the interiors of AP I thought.
No, it was a string they said. At least, a planned series, of which Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat had been successes. My heart was racing. Gokul Chat? That place in Koti you went to, every time, you picked up a text book, from across the street? It was the happiest place on a weekend evening! Colleges broke out, office half days got over, families stepped out - we were one of them. And often. In fact, everytime someone was in town, and they'd done the Charminar-Golconda-Salar Jung circuit, we'd drag them to Gokul Chat! You had to do a Gokul Chat on every trip to Hyd. And to the average Tamilian, who's only had poor substitutes to the original, Gokul was a life changing experience!
And then Lumbini. Remember when in class 8, the twenty of us had gotten together and 'hung out' at Lumbini, to give Niti and Namratha a farewell? We'd packed Chinese food from this little restaurant, and played there all day! And taken our first steps towards couple busting! How could they target Lumbini? It was just the place you'd find the extended Muslim families meeting up, for a nice evening out on Saturdays. The entrance is always teeming with hawkers, like in those large multi-stall exhibitions, they hardly have nowadays. And then the boat rides, over bad smelling Hussain Sagar. You had to take one to the Buddha statue, it was our very own equivalent of a ride to Statton Island. The other spots, I hear include Venkatagiri theatre. That's where they played hit Telugu movies, and you could always catch which one, in the morning's DC. And Dilsukhnagar. Ironic. The name speaks for itself.
It's a weird feeling. Hearing about the city you grew up in, being target to a bomb blast series. Suddenly you can empathise. Suddenly, you feel a stinging pain, and tears well up. It just can't be true. This doesn't happen in Hyderabad. This doesn't happen in happy places; in places where people go, to be happier. In places that offer the simplest joys of life - nothing makes the tummy feel nicer than a 12/- aloo chaat at Gokul's. Nothing is funner than the stark pink candy and the masala puri and the bhutta right outside Lumbini. Nothing is more liberating than the pav bhaji at Gokul's melting in your mouth. And nothing makes you freer than the wind whipping your hair on the boat ride at Lumbini.And then, perhaps not. Not anymore.
I want to stand up and scream. At everyone who thought up all this. I want to shake them till their last bone is rattled, and ask them how they feel now, post the half-baked success. I want them to tell me if they loved their chat and coal charred bhutta. I want them to relive little moments from the past, when they made visits to their Lumbinis, and Gokuls, wherever they may have been. It will be hard not to empathise. And when that does happen, it will be hard not to be heartbroken.