I tend to stay away from commenting on anything political, not because I don't have political views, but because this was a column meant to focus on happenings in the city of Bombay alone. That was my mandate when I began, and it continues to be the focus. A worrying number of my colleagues now tend to avoid political issues because they want to hold on to their jobs. This time though, I was compelled to break with tradition because of what happened a little over a week ago.

If you weren't at August Kranti Marg (and I wasn't), you missed what I did — a gathering of people across all walks of life, coming together because they were compelled to. I don't know why it happened because, until it did, I had assumed these kinds of things belonged only in the school textbooks placed before me during classes on history. Someone forwarded me videos though, and a hundred photographs of people far younger than I, holding up placards against something that went against their collective conscience. 'Jab Hindu-Muslim Raazi,' read one, 'Toh Kya Karega Nazi'. It made me weep.