Terror without bounds

We grew up in the home of a law enforcer who took his job very seriously and was a stickler for discipline and for doing the right and the honest thing. No half larks, no going back on his word, no short cuts, no sweet talk, no bowing to political considerations, no hands extended under the table, no passing the buck - he was where the action was, leading from the front, fearless, and he seemed to lead a charmed life.

One of our earliest memories was of our father setting out on an undercover operation, on the trail of one of the notorious dacoits of the state. There was no media coverage in those pre-television days and in the small district town where we lived, even the newspapers arrived late. It was also the time before we could read, so there was little chance of us getting to know where he had gone.

We just accepted his absence without question, safe in our home but with a faint feeling that something exciting was underfoot. Maybe it was the eagle eye that was kept on our activities by our mother, maybe it was the extra alert policeman at the gate: we knew, we thrilled a bit, but we took it in our stride, never having encountered violence in any form.

The trail of the dacoit took Father on foot over hilly terrain, into the wilderness and from village to village, undistinguishable from the rural folk in a dhoti and kurta, his moustache and stubbled chin making his 'disguise' complete. After several relentless weeks, when finally the dacoit knew he had been outguessed and outmanoeuvred, he sent a message of surrender.

But he wasn't going to make it easy for the lawmen on his heels. The message specified that Father should meet him alone, unarmed, on the far side of the stream - thereby ensuring that a hidden weapon wasn't an option. Father didn't hesitate. He stripped and swam across unarmed. He was convinced that the dacoit, though a man of violence, was a man of his word.

That and his great faith in the law were his armour and he came out of the encounter victorious, unscathed, and a hero for those who were in the know and for us, who learnt of his exploits in later years.

The face of violence changed over the years. The face of the law did, too. Father retired from active service in a time long before random acts of terror became a way of life all over the world. He'd read about or watch the course of police action and we'd know that he was thinking how he would have done it. And we'd also know that secretly he wished he could still be in the fray.

He'd tighten his fists, flex his muscles, grind his teeth, screw up his face as if fighting a tough opponent - and in his mind he was! He was a part of the chase, brooking no infringements of the law, watching carefully to see if the police officers, some of them known to him, were achieving what they had set out to. Lamenting falling standards if they didn't, applauding unchanged commitment if they did.

Today, well into his nineties, he watches the horror that has overtaken his home state time and again. Shakily, he goes to his door to make sure no gun-wielding terrorist is standing there, ready to force his way in.

And as he watches another generation of policemen going in for the attack, officers leading from the front as he once did, he knows that some things don't change, but we know that others do.

Terror was somewhere far, far away in those years of our innocence.

Today it is unleashed, unchained - on the street behind us, in the next building, in our homes.

The writer is a journalist based in India.