16 February 2010

Round and Round the Merry Go Round.

The wonderful thing about Merry Go Rounds is that you keep spinning and never have to get off until it stops or you're thrown off. That's why children love them. The joyful repetitive nature of a Merry Go Round appeals to their simple instincts.

Perhaps that then is the same reason we keep committing the same mistakes, the same follies, the same murders, the same errors in judgement and we never tire of it. Case in point: the bomb blast at the much-loved German Bakery in Poona.

Between the gazillion conspiracy theories, the buck-passing, the admonishments, the speculation, the show of responsibility, the blame game and the false sympathies, one thing remains clear. It's the same Merry Go Round.

Poona will never be the same again. Just as Bombay was never the same after the 1992-1993 horrors and then again 26/11, Poona will change. At first subtly, then obviously and finally, irrevocably.

Eventually as children grow up, they tire of the Merry Go Round and experiment with slides and swings and monkey bars. But as adults, we don't seem to want to experiment with peace, tolerance, respect or honesty. No, we're quite happy to hop on and stay on or hop on and be pushed off to our deaths.

Those of us who have memories attached to German Bakery suffer our loss quietly. Almost stoically. Almost in preparation for the next kid to be flung off the Merry Go Round.