OH OSAMA !!!

Back in the 90 s, like any child of my age, I too was a great fan of mythological stories which my grand ma used to tell me every night, while I was lulled to sleep. I remember the tale of the Buffalo demon Raktabeej who was killed by Goddess Durga in a fight. But this victory did not come off so easy, even for the goddess. The demon had a boon that whenever a drop of his blood fell on the ground, a duplicate Raktabeej would be born at the spot, thus making it very difficult for the goddess to win, as hundreds of duplicate demons were born as his blood fell on the ground. Finally, it was goddess Kali who came to her rescue and sucked off the blood pouring from the body of the demon. Ultimately, he was annihilated.

The 6.94 billion population of the world had a great sigh of relief on the wake of May 2, this year, when the U.S Navy Seals gunned down the planet’s “Mostest” ( I could not find a better word, though might be meaningless) wanted ever born, Osama Bin Laden, in his luxury hideout in Pakistan. It added yet another feather in the cap of the U.S forces and marked an end to the chase, the manhunt that began nearly a decade ago in September 2001, post 9/11. The U.S sources confirmed that the man killed was indeed Osama, the terror king of all times, who had now been reduced to a “bloody corpse”, bringing a smile on faces across the world.

But is it really celebration time for us too? Is Bin Laden really dead? Does his “physical” absence from the earth mark the end of fear in the world? Have the words “terror” and “terrorism” vanished with the “long cherished” death of the Al Qaida supremo? Can we now have a sound sleep at night, without having to worry about any more violent killings of tomorrow? Can the common Indian man can now be relaxed even if he is late for home or his children do not return thought it’s late at night?

Well, with the recent Mumbai blasts last month, the answer to all the questions above is a big NO. In fact, 13 July 2011 has once again exposed the hollowness and impotency of the security system of the country and the powerlessness of the citizens who are fully dependent on the system, a system which has no backbone. The politically correct diplomats are forming committees, holding meetings, making new “advanced” (?) strategies to tackle the security threats, but is there anything really happening? How long will the babus hide their shameless faces behind the milk white curtains of their posh chambers and hum the tune of “Spirit of Mumbai”, letting innocent lives suffer and suffer?

The U.S did learn a lesson from the 9/11 attacks, unlike India who did not “care to learn” from 26/11. Advertising Guru Mr. Alyque Padamsee truly says
” I wish I could tell the prime minister and the Government that there is no shame in admitting that we Indians understand Vedas and Kamasutra, but not how to handle terrorism… what do we have? Police that come late, hospitals that do not know how to handle patients in a terror attack. Why am I complaining? We will never change.”

True, Bin Laden is dead. But what about the hundreds and thousands of Bin Ladens, who are being trained to become new faces of terror for the world, who are roaming freely across countries and continents, like Raktabeej and who are engaged in the heinous plotting and planning of taking innocent lives irrespective of nations, creeds and races, and thus immortalizing the Osama Cult? When will we learn? Probably the only difference between the buffalo demon and Osama is that while the former was a mythological figure, the latter is not. Osama was here, he still is. Actually, Osamas never die. We don’t let them die.