Terror creates strange conundrums. When it strikes, it stops time and stupefies the storyteller. It freezes time by making everyday acts irrelevant. Terror demands a ferocity of focused attention, bawling like a monster child for an immediate response. In fact, its demands are almost coquettish – insisting on this and refusing that, threatening to ruthlessly terminate the relationship if the blandishments are not right. In terms of action, it demands reflexes which are immediate, trained, coordinated, but in terms of thought, it demands a quietness of reflection. Terror freezes thought. Instead of horror, we respond with hysteria. Instead of coherence, we seek to mimic its action, producing incoherence, a jaggedness of narratives that would intrigue any psychiatrist. This essay is organized in three segments. The first opens with the opera of Hindu Terrorism, the second with the media during the Mumbai terror and the third deals with the middle class attitudes to terror.
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