...

ENOUGH!

What do you want? Freedom? Justice? Peace?

How can you possibly believe that bullets and blasts can achieve that? When, in the history of human civilization, did things unravel so fundamentally to give a voice and violent means to people like you?

Where is our Gandhi? WHERE?

WHY DO YOU HAUNT US??

And you will say "revenge".

You speak of your mothers and sisters. Does taking them away from a Hindu family bring back yours? You speak of rights. When a 25-year-old man - whose only crime is to share your middle name, Mohammed - is strip-searched in an airport in Paris tomorrow, do you feel empowered? You speak of stability. When the 2-year-old Jewish boy will hear a car backfiring in the streets of Brooklyn and will run and hide under his bed because it brings back memories of being held hostage on November 26th 2008 by YOU...will you feel safe?

Who are you to tell my best friend that she cannot go to college today? Who are you to decide that my housemate's parents cannot sleep in their beds in South Bombay for the next few nights? Who are you to crush dreams, spill blood and empty streets of their crowds? Who are you to demand that we live every day in fear? Who are you?

You. The faceless men and women who continue to believe that you have a cause. You. The people who believe that by taking innocent lives your death will have meaning. You. The organizations that look to strangle hope with your evil. You. Who snatch love from our hearts, poetry from our mouths. You. Who are teaching me - one despicable terror attack after another - what it means to hate.

Bombay, my dream, I cry endless tears for you today.

My beloved India. They come to you every year - to tear at you, to torture you. They test the greatness of this land and the spirit of our people. Today, as I watch the brave men - the Mumbai police, the NSG, the Indian Army, the Navy and the security forces - giving their lives to protect your heritage I realize that if I lose faith in you, I lose myself.

Will we remember this Black Friday as the one in which we let terrorists and politicians (one and the same?) define our identities and tear our nation to shreds? Or will we remember this day as the one that made us, once and for all, believe in the strength of the vision that the Boses-Singhs-Gandhis-Khans had for our great nation - that of a people bound together by their undying love for freedom, peace and universal humanity. Please help me believe again, my nation...my people. PLEASE.

Jai Hind.