Watching an icon of Indian industry in a television studio on Saturday night find higher decibels in his voice than he probably did when his net worth declined in the recent financial crisis would have been mildly amusing had the circumstances not been as tragic.
With not a crease out of place in his well cut and possibly outrageously expensive outfit; this gentleman implored government to act against terror. Accusing them of failing him and of course "his" country. Populism, I always thought was the preserve of our politicians, but perhaps in these times it is understandable if it seeps into the core of all public discourse.
When the dust settles and after more ministers are sacked, we will hopefully reflect on this angst that appears to have sneaked into our collective bones and is finding voice in our response to Mumbai.
But I wonder if this angst is finding leadership on the right shoulders? Elite India has for the first time been shaken out of its slumber as terror has attacked what were so far its impenetrable citadels.
The Taj Mahal hotel was insulated before that fateful Wednesday night from all that was wrong with India. It is here while sipping on over priced coffee or gorging on grotesquely expensive stir fry noodles that corporate honchos ridiculed the real India; an India they were squeamish to be part of. Fake sympathy for terror victims in Delhi or Ahmedababad or Bangalore mixed well with the cocktails in the secure environs of the Taj and the Oberoi.
Suddenly, those buildings where the soothing sound of a distant piano provided the comforting solace of security; have become battlegrounds. Guns were meant to go off elsewhere, weren't they? In busy market-places or railway stations that stench anyway. So no wonder the elite are enraged. Suddenly terrorism isn't just a dinner table conversation.
Instead, it has them by the balls and is making them scream. Shobha De says enough is enough. Well Miss De enough was enough long before the peace of South Mumbai was shattered. It was enough when bombs went off in hospitals in Ahmedabad, it was enough when in busy markets in Delhi, Diwali shopping turned into a gory dance of death.
You can sense that terror has moved on from attacking familiar victims: The rickshaw pullers, the daily wage earners, the commuter on a local train; even the middle class executive. Those deaths no longer matter, no longer grab headlines, are no longer enough to get home ministers sacked.
Instead, terror has a new target: Prosperity. Stark as it may sound, those who have escaped its wrath so far are now its direct targets. And they know it...and can see it clear as day.
Where was this elitist angst when a brave bus conductor lost his eyes saving others in Delhi? Or those who have had their legs amputated after the blasts in Ahmedabad? Did elite India find the shrillness in their voices to demand what they are asking for now? Was a fund set-up to support government in fighting terror?
Maybe the big corporates could have taxed their own profits and offered to help the police force get better weapons? I dare say Messer's Tata and Oberoi have deep enough pockets to restore their hotels to glory, but some around this devastated country are still picking up brutally broken pieces and will never succeed.
Mumbai has a strange message for you and me; we who live in the real world. And rarely enjoy the delights of places such as the Taj.
We are now ironically a lot safer, because we are irrelevant in this war. Our blood means little. The new targets are the hypocrites who throw the toys out of the cot only when their own cot is rattling.
Now it is this hollering that can make the wheels of change turn. Sometimes it has to hurt where it really does. The angst of the elite is our greatest ally in the fight to save our country, not some pointless candles that flicker away meaninglessly.
You get the point?
