An axe to grind, an axe to fall

Raj Thackeray has just been arrested and is being driven to Vikroli for the court hearing. Now what? Let’s see. This titbit has enjoyed much more publicity in the past week in Mumbai than the falling temperatures, the art festival and all such mundane things as national news.

The television channels are running a continuous clip of him getting into the van and some twenty-odd (?) policemen getting in after him. One supposes even they are relieved to be able to air something other than,

*MNS chief to be arrested.*

and

*Raj Thackeray may be arrested.*

Viewers are also advised to be cautious since the city is on tenter-hooks, anticipating protests from his supporters. Well, we’ve been waiting for the axe to fall for a week now. Had this been pulled too long, we may as well have been bloody witnesses to protests against inaction.

It’s nearing five now and there’s no telling whether the roads now will fill up with angry protesters, violent mobs or petrified citizens on their way back.

The one thing I’m thinking now is – do the paranoid anti-terrorism campaigning superpowers know this feeling? Perhaps not – constant unease doesn’t make the same headlines that sporadic terror does.

The auto-rickshawalla who ferried me today interrupted my morning reverie with

Why are the shops not open yet? Has something happened in the night?

Of course he was from Uttar Pradesh, an uttar bharatiya, probably the one group that’s even more terrorized by organized politics than the Muslim community right now.

Congratulations, Mr.Thackeray, you’ve guaranteed yourself top-of-mind recall in the Mumbai mind for awhile to come. Uh, until someone else decides to play Big Bully in the Island Playground, that is.