Indians have thrown aside basic concepts of statistics and probability in the wake of the terror attacks in Pune recently. The first thing that came to the minds of millions of Indians was a statistically close-to-impossible “Oh shit, that could have been me” thought. The probability that millions of them could have been at the German Bakery at the exact time of the blast is close to zero, given that the place had a seating capacity of below 100. To put things in perspective, there was a greater probability of them dying by choking on their own spit than in the blast.
This disconnect with reality grew as Pune residents engaged their minds in more fantasy. “Oh, this is crazy. I remember I went there with a few friends just last month. Wow, that could so easily have been us.” said Pupul Jay, 23, referring to the 45 minutes that he spent there exactly 26 days ago. He had absolutely no plans to visit the German Bakery that day or for the foreseeable future.
However, some citizens were justified in heaving a sigh of relief. “We frequently hang out at that place. We were at a Sufi concert in a different part of the city at the time of the blast. It’s a little ironic that we were witnessing the best of Islam when that horrible incident happened” said Asha Ram, 22, putting her in the 4th percentile of Indians i.e. those that can actually perceive reality.
Reactions to the horrific event kept pouring in from all over the country. Concerned citizens spent an average of 0.04 calories and 22 seconds each when they typed messages on Twitter and Facebook. “Oh, this is so bad. Life will never be the same. I hope things get better for our country. India should act tough on terror.” said one status message, the author of which probably went to a movie afterwards before spending a good part of the night drinking in a pub. “Pune is a resilient city. Lets fight and show those bastards that they can’t affect us” said another person, who in his fantasy, did not notice that 85% of the people have to fill their contractual obligations by showing up at work the following day, failing which they probably would be fired.
We were obligated by our editor to get the reaction of Shiv Sena as well. “Arey boss. I don’t think any Marathi Manoos died. Only Germans. They deserve it for..er..being not Marathi Manoos. Many of them have their last name as Khan, like their goalkeeper” fumbled a Sena ‘worker’, whose information is 88% false. “But we have to stop screening of My Name is Khan at all cost. Balasaheb told us. See, today no one is coming out. I think we are successful” he continued, taking 100% credit for the lack of activity on the following day.
Reports say that the Home Ministry has enough evidence to prosecute a key suspect of the Indian Mujahideen who is 100% likely to have raped the village crocodile and a group of travelling enunch goblins as a youngster. We still do not know what is meant by ‘enough’ or ‘prosecute’, given the track record of the Ministry. After the Mumbai Attacks of 2008, the nation safely presumed that a video of Kasab firing his gun would be 100% sufficient to put him to death within a few months. However, the nation soon realised that they had overestimated the speed of the judicial system by a factor of 43. If precedent is anything to go by, the Government needs to find the suspects sperm in atleast 4 parts of the German Bakery before they can given themselves a 50% chance of putting him to justice. The Government is also 100% likely to pay lip service to a 66.67% misnomer called a Fast track Court, as the court is neither fast nor on any track.
We also talked to a passerby, who said “I took my friends there on my 24th birthday last year. Thank God I did not turn 24 this year, although my birthday is in November. Had I been born just one year late and on 13th February, I might have been sitting in that place.” When we asked him to repeat what he said, he seemed to get irritated and said “Are you trying to mock me? Atleast I am better than you ‘journalists’ that try to come up with something funny about an incident as serious as this. You guys are exploiters that have no shame.”
