It’s been 3 Saturdays in a row and I’m quite sure that the local media companies have saved the “Black Saturday” headlines as one of the frequented templates. Terrorism and bomb blasts have been occurring for decades, and in the last year, it would be a lie to say that it is ‘shocking news’ to hear of a bomb blast in the South Asia region. The numbers of people dead always seem watered down and the names of suspects always seem complicated with all the hyphens and Arabic pronunciations.

The Sunday Hindustran Times column by Indrajit Hazra was written with his classic wit and sarcasm, and it got me thinking. He talks about the stereotypical terrorist with the long beard, hook in hand hiding in his over sized black robe. It was funny and spot on, until he made the comparision of a terrorist and an evil person or psycho in a Hollywood film:The truth is that like in horror movies, the monster that terrifies us the most isn’t the one who’s deformed, wears an ice-hockey mask and impales couples with the blunt end of a rake when they’re making out, but the one that’s ‘normal’, or even superior to us. Think Norman Bates. Think Hannibal Lecter. Think Jagdish Tytler. (Change the last name to Narendra Modi if you fancy the Congress.)

This is a funny analogy and yet, it got me thinking… it is difficult to trust anyone, and moreover, in today’s India, it is even more difficult to stereotype people and assume all young people have modern ‘free and liberated’ morales.This feeling grew stronger as I tried to make sense of the polls taken by Hindustan Times in Mumbai on the Sunday front page:

• Do you think Terrorism is related to religion? NO: 61% YES: 39% ... right...
• Do you have any close friend from the other religion? HINDUS: 88% MUSLIMS: 89% ... of course, we live in a city!
• Is it fair to relate terrorism to Muslim community? NO: 46% YES: 54% ... wow..but of course.

This poll reflects the urban Bombay population and from the 3 questions asked, it took me awhile to make sense of the response to the third question which contradicted the stream of thought of the other two questions which reflected that the city space is evolving as a liberal and open-minded space. As I walk around this city, I realise that there will always be preconceived notions of race and religion, but I would think that with businesses growing and gentrifying neighborhoods, people would have become more accepting.

This reminded me of the video above made by Saath, the CVU based in Ahmedabad soon after the riots of 2002, when a train blast in the city of Godhra sparked the massacre in which thousands of Muslims and people from other communities (other than Hindu) were killed and taken away in Gujarat.

Hopefully, on this positive note, we can keep this spirit alive during this time of series of bomb blasts taking off in South Asia's key cities, which can and will this message today as the series of bomb blasts in India’s key cities are sparking yet another stigma against the Muslim communities globally.