Last week, I had guests at my Delhi home. Savad, a Muslim friend from Kasargod, the cauldron of communal frenzy, had dropped by on his way to Agra and Jaipur. As I drove him around Delhi for two days, giving him a guided tour of the capital, mostly monuments by Muslim rulers, our hometown in North Kerala was being shaken by the latest round of communal outbreak.The day he went back was a day of bandh, and he called back promptly to say he was home safe, just in case. In a region where communal eruptions have become too frequent, killers remain largely faceless and killings are beyond reason, one can never be sure. The region always had a large Muslim population, almost as large as its Hindu population and larger in several areas. But never before has it seen the kind of hatred on religious lines that it has become used to of late. During my school-going days, our nearest family friends were two neighbouring families, both Muslim. With no other household nearby, we behaved as one family. The first invitations for any celebration at our home invariably went to them. Nobody told me that the kids I was playing with practised a different religion, believed in a “different” god and hence, were not to be trusted.In school and later in college, it was inevitable that I had several Muslim friends, but it’s a sad twist of fate that now I am forced to take into account their religion here just to make a point. The region’s majority Muslim and Hindu populations have coexisted, largely peacefully, in the past. They still do. In normal times, the town’s people are as friendly and helpful as ever, unmindful of one’s faith, displaying a character so unique to this part of the world, with communal tension virtually non-existent. But in troubled times like these, when the only thing that matters is one’s religion, the town is at its savage worst and the tension is evident.
