The prelude of publicity for the film A Wednesday was impressive. Anupam Kher flew to Ahmedabad to meet CM Narendra Modi requesting him to see the movie, as he was one of the few politicians who took terror seriously. The message was clear: A Wednesday takes terror seriously.

Terrorism is often portrayed as a mortal combat against time between the forces of a uthority and disorder. Here it becomes a battle between a police commissioner (Anupam Kher) and a terrorist (Naseeruddin Shah). An ordinary looking man climbs to the top of an unused building and arranges an array of phones and his computer, almost as if he is setting up a picnic. He rings up and warns the commissioner that he has placed four bombs, one of which is in the police station opposite his office. From that moment, the action is frenetic. One staggers wildly from frame to frame wondering whether it is the pace of the movie or a case of bad editing.

Speed is the essence of the movie. Speed determines pace, speed creates the plot and speed is what terror creates. The mystery of speed is that it is always a race against time. Terror, the movie indicates is time speeded up.

There is also a sociology of place which is as important. Standing on a small terrace framed for drama, the terrorist Shah often gets up and views the giant anonymity of the city. The city is not only the site of terror; the anonymity, the density of city as mass, the very nature of its architecture spawns terror. If the city implies civitas, terrorism threatens the very civics of the city. A terrorised city is a potential oxymoron as terrorism is a denial of the creative disorder of the city.

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