I don’t believe most of what the newspapers shove into my face every morning. The graphic scenes of violence, the smoke and the gore, the sickening descriptions of the mindless madness going on in not too distant places.

I think this is just a ploy for them to sell a few copies more. Anything for a few copies more. To harvest my sympathies for a select group of people. Maybe to shock me into reacting.

But maybe I am too numbed. Maybe I have become too distrustful, too cynical.

I know many people who hail from these places. Would they too have participated in this themselves if they were there? What prompts sane (?), well educated (?), normally non-violent people to embark on such mayhem? Would I do it too if I were in such a charged atmosphere?

How does sacking anybody help? How does it help the countless children who have lost their parents and have no clue why. They don’t know what wrong have they done. They don’t even know which religion they belong to.

But I feel safe and secure. I am sitting here in the air-conditioned confines of my home, far away. (Am I really that far away?) It will not affect my life. Why, I don’t even believe it is happening. Or at least its not as bad as the newsrags make it out to be. Else how can something like this be relegated to inner pages while IT raids on some famous cricket stars (I have nothing against them. I love cricket – that’s just for the record) generates a lot more interest.

There’s something terribly wrong here. Something in the air which is slowly corroding our collective conscience. What else can explain the general apathy? The fact that we are so busy with our own lives that we don’t even have the time to read the details of the 6 more dead today?

But I sometimes pause (very rarely) and wonder that if this malaise were to rear its head in my neighbourhood, then what comfort or security would my current lifestyle offer? Nothing…..