We were having an unusually late-dinner that evening, when my mobile rang incessantly. I am virtually a die-hard incommunicado guy post-supper time, so such intrusions are infrequent. But that evening my elder daughter was ensconced amongst friends, as one of them had just attained voting rights, so I gingerly responded to the missed call. My driver's voice betrayed an uncharacteristic anxiety; India's Taj Hotel had been attacked.

I switched on the TV instantly. The first news break stated that there was firing reported at Café Leopold , a seaman's anchorage and yuppie hang-out , where over agreeable omelette and chicken fry, beer consumption beats the national average by a whopper. It could always be the handiwork of a loony man gone berserk, or inebriated by excess of bubbly, I thought. Or just some gang warfare. But that was not the case. Within minutes, the initial turmoil had assumed frightening proportions. CST (Victoria Terminus) and Trident Towers at Nariman Point too had witnessed a similar exchange. There seemed to be a diabolical pattern emerging. This was not just a one-off violent outrage. This was a well-constructed conspiracy. People would die, they were meant to. I acted quickly on gut instinct. Memories of a bloody March afternoon fifteen years ago came back to me at overwhelming speed.

On that fateful day of March 12 1993, I was less than two minutes from the deadly blast that killed several at the Air India building. Within minutes of entering the Express Towers where my bank was located, one turned around to find that cars and humans were burnt in a collective conflagration, charred within seconds of the incendiary blasts. In 1993 it was a series of multiple explosions that had shaken Mumbai. This did not seem much different. The signs were as ominous to say the least.

The fast-paced journey to fetch my daughter from the Taj President was an excruciating experience. The crowd had thinned considerably (it's amazing how information travels in the mobile age), but even then the traffic signals seemed to stretch to infinity. When I finally saw her, it seemed momentarily illusory , as the madness had by then assumed alarming levels. Even as we were driving back home , just a few kilometres away the terrorists had pumped bullets into our senior police force killing eminent officers such as Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar and Askok Kamte. The Cama hospital was not spared either. Trident Towers was already barricaded and resembled an urban edifice in spectacular loneliness. Marine Drive , usually a speedster's fancy at late night , had become totally deserted. For the first time, I missed a traffic jam. The city was fast getting enveloped in a deathly stillness.

While the live coverage was overall commendable, hyperbole was fast replacing rational sense as even seasoned TV journalists allowed their personal predilections to come in the way of dispassionate discussion. Television anchors naturally kept repeating ad nauseam " Mumbai will never be the same again". But they forgot Mumbai has never been the same since 1992 , when insane fury ostensibly termed as religious convictions held sway with the Babri Masjid demolitions. When the BJP leader LK Advani had quietly presided over its catastrophic collapse. When Shiv Sainiks danced atop it's falling dome. When a state machinery targeted a specific community as riots broke out.

The serial blasts that followed as an aftermath was a reminder that retribution would be lethal. A decade later Godhra has refueled the hate-tank. The fact that the Congress has looked sideways instead of addressing the harsh realities of emerging militancy in the minority community of Muslims head-on has only accentuated matters. The bottomline is that India has unleashed upon itself an uncontrollable local monster, which has now mingled with disaffected global Islamist forces. It is a toxic combination. It is imperative that the infiltration of Al Qaeda and Pakistan-based terrorist organizations into impressionable minds of susceptible young Muslims is addressed as a high priority. The Indian Muslim today is caught in an unfortunate cross-fire.

As 24x7 news coverage took over, some television anchors , comfortably perched on swiveling air-conditioned studio chairs, have added further fuel to understandable raging public sentiment. One TV anchor went to perverse levels to ridicule politicians. Such irrational vehemence is fallacious. Of course, there is complete unanimity about the dismal failure of our political-administrative -security ecosystems. That does not require complex elaboration. But to encourage hostility or to just provoke anger in a volatile environment hardly befits a responsible media. There are several instances, right from a minute replay of Vilasrao Deshmukh's press conference to the ludicrous instance of the Ram Gopal Verma farce, where the exaggerated screen time dedicated to them reflected our electronic media's short-term TRP obsession. I thought TV journalism touched its lowest nadir when we aired nasty jibes at our Prime Minister by all and sundry, carried away in an emotional hurricane. It was juvenile stuff.

I think the electronic media has been the first institution to fall for the well-orchestrated terrorist plans. They are so thick-skinned and self-obsessed, I don't think they have even realized that they might have given away vital security leads to the terrorists during those crucial 60 hours . They have channelised public anger against all state institutions, which is currently hardly the way to reconstruct the already demotivated teams in the police, navy, military or administrative forces, amongst others. I foresee a PIL against electronic media by some discerning activists.

The truth is that as a country we were all terribly unprepared for such a well-executed and almost arrogant plan of deadly attack. Simple. Of course, there needs to be a dramatic systemic overhaul in our security apparatus ( amongst other political processes), but pedestrian politician-bashing is only populist pandering for cheap windfalls. The politician is thankfully under the goggle-eyed public microscope at last, but such constant slandering will end up being counter-productive. The last thing India needs now is a demoralized political leadership.

The night of 26th November may be over. But if we do not wake up quickly enough, the nightmare may yet be just beginning.