Me: Namaskar, Griha Mantriji, thank you for your time. You must be really busy coordinating anti-terror operations around the country.

HOME MINISTER (HM): Through this interview I wish to send out a message to all my dear brothers and sisters in the country that the Home Ministry is With You. For You. Always.

Me: Quite. That line from the Delhi Police is a great confidence booster, must say.

HM (whipping out a nail file and giving himself a quick manicure): We shall nail them. Read my lips. We shall nail them.

Me: Right.

HM (pulling out a coat brush and attending to the left sleeve of his coat): We shall wipe them away from the face of this country, just as I am removing this bit of fluff from my bandhgala.

Me (very impressed): I am sure they will feel the heat.

HM (brushing his right sleeve): Not only will they feel the heat, they will find themselves in the cold! (He laughed so long at his little joke that I had to politely join in.)

Me: Well said, Mantriji, well said.

HM (gazing long and hard at his extremely well-polished shoes): We shall trample them underfoot. Fight them on land and in sea, we shall fight them in space and outer space. We shall never surrender.

Me: Mantriji, you sound almost Churchillian, if I may say so.

HM (sitting up very straight and frowning at a crease on his right sleeve): They think they are destablising this country and this government, but they had better think again.

Me: Quite right, Mantriji, you have to display national resolve.

HM (pulling out a rose from the vase in front of him, and pinning it to his coat): Day and night they try and undermine our authority and terrorise us. It shall no longer be tolerated.

Me: That’s exactly what Giuliani said when New York came under attack.

HM (looking down on the rose now beaming rosily from his lapel): They should know that there is a limit to our tolerance.

Me: Yes, we need to show zero tolerance to all acts of terror.

HM (contemplating the fall of his left trouser leg): They must know that the Home Ministry has tracked some of them down.

Me: I am sure they are really on the run.

HM (contemplating the fall of his right trouser leg): Every man and woman who terrorises us will be demobilised.

Me: That’s great, Mantriji, which groups have you zeroed in on until now?

HM (pulling out a mirror and considering his left cheek): We first blocked access to 17 websites. We may have lifted this now but this troublesome community of half a million potential terrorists, also known as bloggers, knows we are watching them.

Me (almost jumping out of my skin): What about the others? I believe some arrests have been made.

HM (still looking at the mirror): They are next. All TV channels will soon be brought under the ambit of a special legislative instrument to fight terror—our draft of the broadcast bill is ready.

And that’s how I learnt that the country, and its citizens, are in extremely safe hands.