Where were we!??

Every adult who was alive in the US when John F Kennedy was assassinated will tell you what he/she was doing when they heard the news. I was not alive when the Mahatma was assassinated, but I certainly remember what I was doing when I heard about the assassination of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. I don’t however remember my disposition at the time of Pokhran 1 or 2 but I certainly remember where I was when the twin towers came down and the Babri Masjid was destroyed. I guess we benchmark these occurrences based on how much they mean to us or how deeply we have been affected by them. Today with the TV channels ‘Breaking news’ every 10 minutes, it is perhaps a difficult exercise.
I will never forget the 26/11 terrorist attack. I was in Delhi with a senior journalist friend. In fact I was staying with him. It is always a pleasure talking to journalists because they have such a bird’s eye view on the happenings in the country. This particular journo is one of the best defense reporters in the country. All you have to do is ask a stupid question and you can get some terrific insights into the complexities of their specialty. As a peacenik, I asked him if he ever foresaw the possibility of India being in a situation where there would be no need for a standing army and a significant part of the defense budget being used for development- education and health in particular. He was amazingly prescient when he said that he did not foresee such an eventuality. He predicted that conventional inter-national war will be replaced by intra-national conflict!! The arms dealers will never be out of business, he promised. Terrorism and internal strife will keep our army busy. I retired early to bed. My friend arranged for me to sleep in his extensive library- filled from floor to ceiling with books-mostly about war, terrorism and other conflicts. I was tired yet mellow from a couple of drinks and went to bed in the company of voluminous tomes about war and terror.
When my friend woke me up at midnight I was not sure if it was a dream. Terrorist Attack! Terrorist Attack! He said. I was confused because reality morphed into a dream like trance of battles, guns and grenades. It was surreal. The whiskey did not help matters! I was ready to run out or jump out of the building (8th floor I think). My friend quickly pointed to the TV screens showing repeated images of the TAJ, CST and the other sites. Still groggy I went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, surrounded by books of war and the faint memory of some visual action, I was still not sure if it was a dream or reality. Another benchmark etched into my memory reminding me where I was when it happened!