baby's reaction

one saturday.. i went for a movie with a friend in a nearby theatre... just for spending the evening lazily... physically and mentally. tickets were not a problem.. we got two of 'em easily. well.. we did not celebrate it that much... courtesy movie review in the newspaper, that morning. there was time left for the show to start. we moved around the multiplex stalls... indifferently, every shop owner must have predicted that we are not going to buy any damn thing. we smoked two sticks one after another.. to kill the time further... and we decided to enter the theatre at last. we got ourselves seated comfortably on nicely cusioned multiplex seats.. hoping some good looking girls would come around and sit beside us. the screen and the sound boxes were doing their job to exhibit several ad films and to insist on some directive principles. we knew the ordeal. next they will cast "jan gan man" and then the movie for which we had the tickets. yes. we stood up as the words on the screen prompted us to do so in the honour of our national anthem. well.. it started. but this version was new to me. Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar sang it on Rehman's composition. the video showed closeups of the singers and the india flag. it ended and i felt tears rolling down my cheeks. this was no first time that i listened to "jan gan man". so i felt further more than the tears. once i saw a baby getting hurt on his knees. everybody... his parents, relatives.. close ones... came running towards him.. spelling out different words, some cursing the woodden block that hurt him, some sympathizing him... some providing courage to deal with the wound... but words only. the baby looked listlessly towards everyone's face. few minutes later, he broke down into tears... i realized i was hurt by the attack on taj mumbai on wednesday, 26th. i reacted 3 days later. the baby took minutes. i took days.

and i passed..

there are few questions.. that arise somewhere inside me. questions that can be answered only by me. its a self test kind of thing. but assessing the answers... is always more difficult than the test.
an urge comes out to ask the same questions to different people under same circumstances and reconcile their answers with those of mine. but that sounds stupid. assuming is wiser... rather, easier than clarifying.. and i pass myself in the test.