“The Da Lakhvi Code” continues …….

At the end of my presentation it was clear to all that there was an urgent need to deploy sufficient armed forces at India Gate. Without much ado, the decision was made to not take any chances and to make a show of our response. A detachment of the Indian Army was to be deployed immediately.
When the next day broke, early morning joggers on Rajpath were surprised to see army men wielding light machine guns stationed all around India Gate in full battle gear. A few light tanks were also stationed at strategic points for effect.
My sense is that the terrorists probably went to ‘play’ the ‘World Cup’, but seeing the army deployment there, quietly retreated. The exchange of emails stopped completely, which corroborated this inference. A major terror event had been averted and many lives saved. No one will know what effect such a terror attack would have had on Indo-Pak relations, which were fragile at the time in the aftermath of the Parliament House attack that had brought the armies of the two neighbours eyeball to eyeball.
At the end of this story, I can’t help but get a bit platitudinous. Sometimes in life, what appears to be very complex and difficult to solve eventually turns out to be simple. The code that was being used by the terrorists in their emails appeared to be one such intractable riddle. Once the code was cracked, it suddenly looked simple and set us wondering why the best and most competent experts had not been able to crack it, despite having the latest software and hardware at their disposal. Or for that matter, why couldn’t we crack it ourselves? But isn’t this what happens in life all the time? Once we cross an obstacle that seems insurmountable, it looks simple in hindsight.


To be Continued ……….