India and Pakistan were on the brink of war.
I was excited. The awam was excited.

It began when a group of terrorists—eager to resist but unable to desist—opened fire on tourists in Pahalgam, armed with AK-47s and The Satanic Verses as their shield. Their bullets were not random. They verified first whether the individual was “aware of Allah.” Recite the Kalma—or face death. When faith becomes a password for survival, one must ask: Sir, if it is that vital, why isn’t it embedded in our DNA? The Gene-e-Quran?

Language predates script. Life predates language. The universe predates all of it. And nothingness—well, it precedes even that. Ever wondered what predates nothingness? I always do. Nevertheless, such truths are hard to digest, so human ingenuity is recruited to manufacture false truths. Religion steps in, offering comfort in the form of exclusivity.

The terrorists even separated men from women, furthering their divine discrimination. The Quran forbids killing women and children, yet permits “killing” as they interpret it. Twenty-six lives were taken because a few men sought paradise and hoors. All of this unfolded in a place that prompted Firdaus to write: “Gar firdaus bar ru-ye-zamin ast, hamin ast-o hamin ast-o hamin ast.” They should have surrendered their weapons to nature, let the Himalayas be their Hafiz, and worshipped silence. But a morality synthesised, revered, and served from the tribal order of the seventh century does not allow such peace.

The State as an Avenger

Retaliation, of course, had to follow.
The modern nation-state—often failing to offer the basic good of life—becomes a vigilant avenger in death. Because a citizen’s death by terror, and not by due process of law or state machinery, is a loss of tax, prestige, and legitimacy. They did not die because death exists; they died because the State could not protect them.

Questions like these are only allowed in the quantum world, where reality plays spooky tricks. They bothered Einstein as well. Here, in our world, truth is whatever you believe in.

So India responded.

The operation was named Sindoor—ripe with symbolism, pregnant with interpretations. Sindoor is red. It signifies marriage. Feminists may call it a chain, conservatives may call it tradition, but the army called it justice—Sindoori justice. Terrorist camps across the border were demolished using precision strikes with supersonic cruise missiles, guided to escape enemy radars. Missiles. Ever wondered why they are called that? I don’t know. We debate the names of life-giving things, but death machines? They deserve no poetry. Just call them what they are—death.

Factories of Faith

Nine locations were struck. The targets lay deep inside Pakistan—launchpads of indoctrination where men were fed Taleem-e-Justice, sworn on the Quran, and transformed into genetically modified mujahideen. Shit becomes functional when Socratic reasoning collapses. The idea was simple: kill for Allah, die for heaven. Horror rewarded by hoors. What a trade.

When your post-death plan is sorted, living and killing becomes easy. In this light, I would like to encourage the people of Pakistan to use contraceptives more—so the next generation does not inherit these contradictions without consent. We will bomb you with them, if you are willing.

Three Days of Hell

Pakistan denied everything. Vocabulary differs across borders. Our “right” may be their “wrong,” but retaliation from their side was an absolute wrong. They fired back. Three days of hell followed.

The war was not just in the mountains. It was in minds, in TV studios, on Twitter, in WhatsApp forwards. The digital verse has more potent weapons than any warhead. Civilians on both sides—Indian and Pakistani—suffered and enjoyed equally. But I am not supposed to mourn for “them.” That is the curse of citizenship.

For Pakistan, it is difficult to differentiate who is a terrorist and who is not. The tribal republic of Lehsun-e-Pakistan is shit with holes. They are religious folk, born out of Jinnah’s two-lehsun theory. Quaid-e-Azam, the bona fide butcher. The curse of Islam—not as faith, but as weaponised identity.

Drones, missiles, counter-missiles. Fake news. Jingoism. Nationalism. Television noise. Contradictions colliding. Us dying. Them dying. Us retaliating. Them hiding.

Zia-ul-Haq might be watching and smiling from hell-ven. Hoors cannot suffice for the pleasure derived from horrors.

Global Theatre

When two nuclear-armed nations fight, the Global North develops FOMO. They miss the symphony of bombs, the calm of chaos. It should be them or no one. The United States whispers peace through backchannels. Britain relapses into colonial withdrawal symptoms. Sovereignty vanishes. Jean Bodin is ghosted.

And when a seventy-nine-year-old man-child named Do-Not Trump is in power, war begins to feel like bad comedy. Stormy Daniels over stormy nights. Trump, after all, paid Stormy Daniels hush money—because he does not need his mouth to open anymore.

Eventually, a deal was brokered. War paused. But jingoism and terrorism survived—because both have books backing them.

Trump may even be the unlikeliest environmentalist: first a trade war to stop production, then halting a war to stop emissions from bombs. Greta Thunberg exists, but he is the Greatest Thunberg. Does the carbon balance shift every time a missile explodes?

After the Noise

I am in a hurry.

This three-day drama did more than spike television ratings. It exposed the hollowness behind the values we claim to cherish. Secularism is not a sin. It is the Gandhian whisper in a shouting match. It is how a wounded India tells a rogue lehsun state: your exclusivity is a curse.

And yet, I still dream of India.
My India.

But what is India, really?

Is it the people?
The patch of land?
Or our values?

More on this later. I have an exam to appear for. Since no war is happening, exams will not shift—public good versus private loss.ack. Three days of hell followed. The war wasn’t just in the mountains. It was in mind, in TV studios,

DUVIDHA

The Utiliatrian Dilemma

Can you see something without words ?

Two Lehsun Theory

Let my WHY live