I have been listening to this song since I was a child.
My mother never liked this song. So it wasn't played in my house. We didn't know the tune, nor the lyrics.
We didn't like this genre of music.
And suddenly in 1992, the song was playing everywhere.
It played in the middle of the night, and grew louder and louder like a mob was stalking near.
It played and played for nearly 2 months. And started seeping inside my head.
When I wasn't scared, I hoped it would play on so the schools will remained closed.
When the schools re-opened, my teachers asked all of us our opinions on what should be made on a far away land that was sending waves of tremors all across the country.
I said - A school would be good. Like mine. Where all of us play in the tall grass and chase yellow butterflies in rains and blow smoke in the winter winds.
My opinion was published. I read my name, my age with my religion beside it in the newspaper for the first time.
And I heard the same song, as if chanted in crazy murmurs. It sent shivers down my spine.
I started hating this song.
I grew up and the hatred grew.
I went into a phase of denial. The song doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It must not exist. It doesn't matter.
It died down. Or I had hoped.
Then, suddenly, it infested my ears in 2002.
I started hearing it behind my back. Faint wafts of it. The stink in it. It was old and rotten.
But never did it die. the sound of it.
What do you eat, what do you wear, which is your favorite cricket team, what are your political views on issues. The lyrics changed. But the song was the same.
The song has never stopped playing.
"Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim."
