Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
I'm trying to sort out a heap of documentation, helping another project get their resources in order. Get to use my rather critical eye to do the finessing. Oh, what fun. Don't millennials have an eye for detail? I ask myself.
Boom boom
Boom boom
Boom boom.
I ask the guy next to me if he can hear drums.
He can.
- They're getting ready for Modi's visit. He's talking to the masses at Marvel at six.
- Oh, joy. So, the Indian diaspora is converging at marvel this afternoon.
- Yep.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
- Those drums are starting to give me the shits.
I should mention that the person next to me is a dapper, middle-aged bloke of Indian extraction. Lovely guy.
- Me too. I don't want to celebrate Modi.
- Really?
- He's evil, he tells me.
- Okay. I can't comment on Indian politics. I'm staying out of it. I don't know anything to have an opinion.
He smiles at me and nods.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
- Those bloody drums.
A colleague excused themself from the office a little earlier. They didn't feel safe. And fair enough.
But I've worked down in the Docklands for long enough not to rise to the bait of a little political insurrection. I was in the building when riot police were called in to babysit Christopher Pyne (yes, really - it was the only book launch I've been to where riot police were involved.) I was in London when the IRA were regularly bombing the place. I wandered the streets of Hong Kong during the protests. A little bit of political unrest doesn't phase me.
Boom boom.
Boom boom.
Yet the drums were unsettling.
- Those drums are annoying, I said to my colleague.
- I don't find them a celebration, not for this man. But what are we to do?
- Maan nahi janti! I responded in the only bit of Hindi that I know.
- You do that well.
I know nothing other than the drums were driving me spare. A harbinger of who knows what.
Leaving work a few hours later, the front doors were locked on the building. There was a police presence - nothing over the top. No horses. No riot squad. We could easily leave by a convenient side door.
Everything was calm. The locked doors were a precaution, nothing more. They do that for Friday night football matches.
We were safe. People made their way to Marvel Stadium. It was quieter than a football match. People were orderly.
Nothing to see here.
Boom boom.
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