And it's ticking.

On one of those mornings when you simply don’t want to get out of bed, have you imagined a scene where someone you can’t quite see is trying to forcibly prise your eyes open? Like literally using a flat spanner as a lever to pry open those heavy sleep-laden eyelids?

That’s exactly how I feel I am being treated by those terrorists who were at the Taj last week. In a strange way, they have done me and hopefully many other 20 something, rich yuppies some good. They have forced us to wake up and look around us, and not even too far away. For terror struck familiar territory.

Oh no, it wasn’t in those 4 feet wide galis where you went shopping before Diwali, when you were still part of a middle class household. No sir, this time round, you can’t say “Man, I used to go there with my mum to buy diyas every Diwali. I (of course!) haven’t been there in 12 years. Now, you get them at Shoppers’ Stop you see. Thank God!”

If you went to business school in India, and decided to stay back, you probably ended up in South Mumbai, or Gurgaon, which is quite obviously the other sitting duck, for everyone to watch with bated breath now. Thanks to the famous ‘lack of diversity’ syndrome at Indian schools, you should have known a minimum 10 people who were your friends / friend’s friends / friends’ fiancés / friends’ bosses, etc. etc. who were at one of the restaurants, cafes or simply sauntering down the causeway. So no big surprise then that you knew someone who was shot dead/shot at / choked to death in the tragedy. Even if you missed this one, you probably knew someone’s someone who was on the Mumbai local in 1993 or 2006 or 2008 – take your pick. Or may be in the bazaars of Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwhati? The malls of Bangalore, Delhi?

It’s almost like, if I had my entire life mapped out, the law of averages is heavily stacked up against me. Like in a video game, I have missed target narrowly multiple times over. Be it city, time, location, method – I have escaped narrowly several times now.

Well then, what more can I possibly be waiting for? If I don’t open my eyes, and do something now, I never will. Yes, sitting on a time bomb feels uncomfortable indeed.