I woke up to my disbelief and sheer shock on Thursday early morning. I got a call from home saying some terrorist attack is going on in Mumbai and many hi-profile officers are dead. I was shocked. I never heard the name Hemant Karkare before, but as soon as I heard he was killed in attack, first thing I did was to log on to Internet and see what is happening , in wee hours of child morning in Delhi.

The next hour or so, I have visited number of web links. I totally forgot that I had to go to office early that day to finish some pending tasks. I was in sheer disbelief that it is happening in Mumbai, the place where I come from. I was sad. I was feeling lonely. I thought of going home for a while, but that was not possible. At least I knew all my friends and family are safe. Thank God! Or should I be?

The whole day I spent in gloom. After coming to office, I headed straight to cafeteria to see the details. I was anxious to know everything about it. I sat on chair, ordered a coffee and started watching news. As the time passed, I became sadder. I waited there for some time and left the mob gathered in coffee shop in haste. I wanted to express my grief. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shout. I wanted to talk. I wanted to fight. I just wanted to be there. But I knew it was not possible.

As Mumbai continues to bleed and after witnessing Delhi bomb blasts my mind goes far back in time when I was a young child. I was gifted a dictionary by my grandpa. I was happy and sat with grandpa who was an English school teacher. I was going through pages and stopped at one word suddenly. Coincidently the word was ' the terrorist'. I read the meaning of the word, but it appeared abstruse to me. So I turned up to Grandpa and asked ' What does it mean?' and he answered, the people who spread terror in society like Gundas and Mawalis and exploit people for money. I was scared. I knew one gunda near my school who used to exploit students to give him money during school recess. So when next day I went to school, I told my friends that there is a terrorist near our school who threatens student and take away their money. Everyone got scared. But I said nothing to worry about, if you don't go via Mandir road, you might not face him. After all he is not that bad.

Time passed, I forgot the incident. Life was going normal and smooth, but now I feel we didn't deserve it. Suddenly people calling themselves Terrorists started threatening the life security and peace of life. Days after days, months after months I became familiar to the word more. But the meaning attached to the word, as told by Grandpa was no where matching. I was trying to convince myself, that the meaning is still true. But for past some years, I gave up and had to confirm that my grandpa was wrong. He never knew the real meaning of terrorist. And that was perfectly alright, because he never heard of bombing a train or car or killing people by crashing an airplane on towers. Never!

It has become commonplace now, terror, terrorists and terrorism. The term which was so rare some years back is now the most frequently used/read/spoke word in media. Can you believe this? At least for me it is hard to believe. And more grave is the meaning attached to it. The sheer act of killing people at ease by any mean anywhere at anytime in methodical way has become so easy for few people that, I fear calling them terrorists is like hiding their real identity. We need to define their acts, their cruelty. We need to define the inhuman face of human.

We need help. We all do. It is our problem. Please understand this. We need help, to understand the problem at our door step. Merely watching news and forgetting will not help. It might happen to anyone of us. We need co-operation among ourselves. We need to tackle it.

I believe, building people's network is only possible solution to this. We need to take part in it. We need to be good and honest citizens. We need to pay attention to our surrounding, to people around us. We need to be more vigil, more alert. Share this responsibility. Share this attitude. Share the sorrow and grief of people who died.

We need to observe, we need to see what is happening around us. Do you find something strange? Did you notice something? Did you find something suspicious? Observe people around you. Yes, it is not CBI or IB but we citizens are real intelligence. It is up to us. It is up to us to take responsibility. Will you? You will have, otherwise someday you will be facing the same, what thousands of others have gone through. Come out of shell of personal security and family safety. No one will be safe henceforth, if we will only care about ourselves and our closed one. We as a part of society has some responsibility and I think the coming years are the best time to share social responsibility. Keep watch, alert police if you notice something strange. Yes, we need to do. Time has come. Wake up my people! Build our own network of intelligence, we are the real source. If we decide, believe me, if we all at least think of this and play his/her duties dutifully, coming incidents could be averted. Yes, it is possible. Be honest, be alert, keep watch and inform. It might save thousands of lives; you could be one of them or be prepared to witness such things again and again.