What a crazy Friday. Explosions in sleepy Bangalore, some even as close as Madiwala. People wondering what to do next, whether to leave at 3 or 5PM. The anxiety mounts as you locate your near and dear ones over telephone networks that are creaking under the weight of this building avalanche. Thankfully, everyone's ok and you work out how they could make it home .... wait for a bit, then travel through these roads, avoid those, etc etc. You go around the office and offer to drive people back and make a plan to begin leaving.

When you drive, you notice that for once, the traffic cops have got their act together and intersections are not jammed. You make it home and turn on the TV. The media is going to town, reporting with the same vigor they apply to reporting that Kareena Kapoor or some other dimwitted starlet kissed some other dimwits son or daughter. There is no mention of the fact that the traffic cops are doing a great job. No one has bothered to report on anything of interest - which roads to avoid and which detours to take, etc. There is little reporting, and more titillation, albeit of a rather visceral nature ... the sort where you feel that your own life is in danger even as you watch the telly. Cheap thrills, Freud might say. Nevermind.

You are thankful, that despite the blast being a few kilometeres away, the fates consipired to isolate you and your dear ones, and mercifully at that. Two others of the city, a labourer and a factory employee, waiting near bus stops are not as lucky. May their souls rest in peace, while the Government and society pegs a value to the event, to ease the bereaved.

Anyway, the point is ... cities which rely on a few roads to connect their 7M populations are vulnerable. The blasts may well have been a scare tactic ... nevertheless, terror is here to stay, and so is life. God save us all.