We’re hijacked! Stay calm

THERE are certain unpatriotic characters amongst us who have actually come to believe after Thursday’s real hijack/ hoax hijack/ hijack drill (tick which ever you believe is the most appropriate), that the whole nation has been hijacked by a bunch of morons who, by a cruel twist of fate, has stormed the nation’s political cockpit and are presently piloting India straight to Ground Zero.

Let me state here firmly for the record that I am not of that conviction. In fact, I am of the firm opinion that this real hijack/ hoax hijack/ hijack drill is all about how prepared we, as a nation, are to face any challenge. Thursday demonstrated that we have come up tops.

For starters, it has proved several propositions correct.

PROPOSITION 1: That the prime minister can keep awake until 4 a.m. Which also explains why he appears to be sleep-walking the rest of the time and why he sometimes appears to be in seriously deep slumber when he is addressing the nation about the need to keep eternal vigilance.

PROPOSITION 2: That the home minister’s Crisis Management Cell is efficient, alert, fully functional and generally tickety-tock. Indeed, with the home minister himself at the centre of operations, it does more than merely manage crises, it actually does its bit to supply crises in times when crises are not readily available, just so that they can be managed better.

PROPOSITION 3: That we have a remarkably experienced union minister for civil aviation who is known to have flown several kites as a child growing up in Supaul. Since the Civil Aviation Ministry’s exertions have now come to comprise largely of kite flying exercises, the present incumbent is an apt appointee. Therefore, all those who believed that the man’s elevation was part of a kite-flying exercise to convince the minorities that the prime minister loves them, are dead-on. Also, the minister is known to be fully acquainted with the intricate details of the aviation industry, including finer points such as cockpits being generally populated by pilots.

PROPOSITION 4: That the massive paunches of the contingency hijack police who are mobilised expressly to grapple with hijackers and generally manage a hijack are not just incidental to hijack control measures but are an intrinsic part of them. The paunches are painstakingly cultivated with the view to forming a second line of defence should the other barricades placed before the offending aircraft fail.

PROPOSITION 5: That hijackers are like you and me, only they wish to go to the toilet at awkward moments; carry ‘‘things’’ in their hands and don’t speak English too well. It would help of course in identifying potential hijackers if they wore a beard and looked as if they were distantly related to Osama bin.

Now this is, I believe, the most valuable nugget of truth gleaned from Thursday’s real hijack/ hoax hijack/ hijack drill, because once we identify the hijacker we can nab him or her easily and lock him up under the proposed anti-terrorist law that the Home Ministry’s crisis management cell is currently configuring. What this really means is that there are approximately 980 million hijackers in this country and the rest had better brush up their English.

PROPOSITION 6: That we, as a nation, have nerves of steel and generally do not panic, I repeat DO NOT panic, except when somebody mentions the hot phrase: ‘‘We have just been hijacked. Do not panic’’. At which point we get into a cold sweat and immediately phone the TV newswallahs because, hey, if you’ve got to go to your maker, you might as well make it on prime time at least.

PROPOSITION 7: That this proves the country is completely and fully prepared to meet any nuclear threat. The moment an unidentified flying object heads towards Delhi, our early warning signals get into action, waking up the havaldar on duty at a secret location somewhere between Amritsar and Delhi. This gentleman will immediately press the secret code — XGNJYRZZYRT — which wakes up the PM, the home minister, Abdul Kalam, the heads of the Armed Forces, the TV channels and the RSS simultaneously.

The PM stays awake, the home minister rushes to his Crisis Management Cell, Abdul Kalam peers into his 100 per cent-home grown radar and wonders whether he should advice the Armed Forces to strike Lahore or Beijing, while RSS cadre rush to coat every house they come across with a specially prepared admixture of cow dung and water that the ancient rishis believed was the very answer to counter the deleterious effects of radiation.

Someone will then discover that the flying object was only a Siberian Crane making its way to the Bharatpur bird sanctuary and the nation will heave a collective sigh of relief.

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