More horror on December 6th.

Thirteen years ago,yet another horrific event transpired on the 6th of December. Armed with axes and hammers and rivers of venom, Hindu karsevaks i.e minions of the BJP and RSS tore down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The events of the day were the culmination of insiduous Hindutva rhetoric that alleges that a temple to mark the birthplace of Rama was destroyed by the Mughal emperor Babar who then built the mosque in its stead. I'm not going to get into the historical ambiguities of that theory - believe me, I'm biting my tongue - but instead talk a little about the personal memories I associate with that period.

I had turned nine 3 weeks before the day in question; I was too young to really grasp its political implications. I remember quite vividly watching BBC news with Dad in my parents' room. As we began to realise that Mama had just left Ayodhya a day or two before, we were both seized by a crippling sense of fear, followed by relief. I remember the same newsreel being played over and over - flashes of saffron interspersed with grim journalists and frenzied karsevaks. I remember desperately wanting my mother to be home with me, instead of in the then-turbulent North.

A few days later, as I sat in my 5th std classroom - pretending to pay attention, writing notes to my partner, waiting impatiently for the bell to ring - a couple of parents frantically barged into our classroom. They had come to take back their kids as news of riots spread across the city like the fire that was consuming several Muslim neighbourhoods. We were let out early, and for the next several weeks, there was no school. The ugly face of communal violence had been revealed, and Bombay - our beloved city - was permeated by the stench of death.

At the time, I revelled in the seemingly permanent vacation from school. I thought it was was funny when our school warned the Muslim students to adopt Hindu names in case the Shiv Sena raided us. I thought it was mighty exciting when our building changed all the Muslim nameplates and assigned some men to keep watch in the wake of lootings and murders of Muslims in the neighbourhood.

When Alisha's family stayed with us for a few days, I didn't understand their fear because I didn't understand their vulnerability.

It was only when Dad defiantly violated the curfew, hence getting into trouble with a mob that the seriousness of the events hit me. He didn't come home until after midnight that day, and I remember crying hysterically because no one knew where he was.

It was only when my family donated money, clothes and food to Nizam, our doodhwala whose house had been looted and burnt that I realised that violence was not exciting, that the numbers in the newspaper had faces.

It was only when we went to the terrace of A-Block and watched as the Muslim-owned timber marts in Mahim disappeared into turbid whirls of smoke that I realised that being off from school wasn't fun but actually really fucking scary.

For years after, our school banned dabbavalas, Muslims continued to have Hindu nameplates on their doors, and bomb threats were a dime a dozen.

I want desperately to believe that that could never happen again, not in Bombay at least. But fueled by the global Islamophobia, it is becoming increasingly common to hear people - educated, supposedly open-minded people - talk about Muslims derogatorily. They breed like rabbits, they're going to overtake the Hindu population. Take care of your women for Muslim men have insatiable sexual appetites. They're foreigners in our country and yet they demand "special" rights? Look at how they treat their women. You expect us to respect a religion like that?

I hope - desperately, sincerely and perhaps futilely - that all those who perished and suffered over the years in the communal riots all over the country, in the silenced genocide in Gujarat in 2002, get the justice they deserve some day in the near future.