Kagaz pe Daaru se aur Zameen pe Khoon se

An incident.

It was a dark night. Sitting on the new Kawasaki 4 stroke, outside the dimly light STD booth, in a remote village in  back of the beyond of Western India, I struck up a conversation with the  owner.

I was a regular there. Those were the  days before mobile phones and cheap STD calls. It was the only way to communicate with my parents.

However today was not a weekend, which was when I would normally call home and folks back home. Today, somewhere in the North, we had lost a MiG 21, and the pilot had been mortally wounded. Media would get a formal brief from the IAF and then it would be published, a couple of days after the  accident. I always made it a point to call home on the day of the accident, coz folks back home my parents  would know, it was not me. The IAF, would certainly have contacted them, if it was.

Anyway, the conversation with the owner, led to a line which is etched in memory.

"Kya sahab, kissi angrez ne daaru peekar  kissi nakshe pe lakir kheench diya toh aap bhai ko bhai se alag kar sakte ho kya?"

In the backdrop of the scrambles against airborne intruders, in the past few days, that line gives a whole new perspective to borders, divisions, castes creed, religion, greed and everything else that divides humans.