Die Bäckerei Bombardierung (The bakery bombing)
A handsome, well built, clean shaven man in his early 30s something wearing a worn out jeans and a casual checkered shirt casually walks in to a cafe, a back pack, possibly a hand bag in one hand and half spent cigarette in the other. He eyeballs the females around the place. He’s smart, looks good and a few eyeballs in the cafe follow him, could be a good date for the pre-valentine day evening.
Our man sits at an empty table, orders a beer and lites up another cigarrete. His phone rings and he starts talking on the phone. The music is a bit loud, perhaps the chatter a bit too much or just a good old low signal strength issue. The uniformed security guard stands aside to give way as he hastily walks out of the cafe trying hard to focus on the conversation. The man, charming that he is hands him a quick tip and continues his conversation on the way out.
The waiter comes over to the empty table, sees the man walking past the guard handing him a quick fat tip. He smiles as he places the beer on the empty table amidst all the loud noise of happy chatter and the music playing in a happening place in Pune.
Moments later the cafe erupts in to a ball of fire. All music and life is extinguished through the entire cafe. There is stench of death everywhere, wails of the injured.
The faceless man meanwhile walked out pretending to catch the signal on his phone, he walked past that door, glanced as he passed the chabad center, disappeared in to the crowd and pressed the green button on his cell phone. He walked on without batting an eyelid as others around him watched the horror show he started some distance behind him.
The country watches the news channels in horror as media blitzkreig does a real time trial and passes judgment on how the political setup failed, the police failed, the intelligence failed.
I say the state of India failed. The politicians are busy trying to make the other man blink first over a silly movie release pushing the state and security machinery in to over drive. The rich people in the cafe were too busy indulging themselves to notice a man leaving a handbag behind as he struggled to converse on his phone. The poor security guards, waiters and the hotel management were happy to serve yet another money throwing customer for the evening.
Yet another round of candle marches, public protests, political bashing and a prompt change of foreign policy towards some neighboring country, as the country will go back to its business as usual come Monday, perhaps even Sunday on the planned Valentine day outings.
