I was looking towards the back of the room when they called death by hanging for the Shakti Mills rapists. I didn’t see anyone flinch.I spoke to the police doctor who did the medical examination of the rapists when they were first brought in. His exact words were: “they didn’t give a damn”.I spoke to the policeman who filed the chargesheet. He said "rape has the highest rate of recidivism. They will do it again."

I don’t think that if they had, given a damn, broken down, wept, pleaded for their lives, promised not to do it again, it would reverse any sense of violation they inflicted on more than one woman that day. I don’t care what Nirbhaya’s rapists think or believe or influence or feel. I do not believe they afforded anyone the mercy they have been afforded in being heard. Who cares why. They chose the deaths they meted out to themselves. Maybe they can think about that as they swing.

My father returned from two spots where the bombs went off on that Friday in 1993. My father has never even fudged an electricity bill or cut a queue. Let alone picked up a sword and ran after Muslims. Or murdered, maimed or raped. Many people who died that day hadn’t done any of that. Most people just hope to get a raise every year and do what needs to be done for that. If they wanted to take out masterminds and planned assassinations, like freedom fighters for Indian Independence did, I would understand their logic I guess. I don’t think India would have gotten Independence by mass bombing fellow Indians wherever they saw a crowd and calling it patriotic. Uddham Singh, who took out O’Dwyer for Jallianwallah bagh and hanged for it on July 31, 75 years ago, took 21 years to get his guy. He didn’t shoot everyone he met on the way there.

So when the liberals claim 1993 was just revenge for 1992, which is okay, and that hanging him is revenge for 1993, which is not okay, I have no clue where they buy their logic smoke from.

They say he is being hanged because he is a Muslim. But he did not plant bombs because he was a Muslim. Because the two Muslimnesses, of terror, and surrender, are different. Ok.

But that the Hindus who kill are not the Hindus who are killed in revenge terror attacks, (there are no spontaneous just-for-fun terror attacks I have learned since 1993, they all come to avenge – a word I assume must be messing up every terrorist’s autocorrect), now that confuses me.

But if a terrorist may appeal with a non vengeful Muslimness, or non vengeful Hinduism if the former is allowed, and be granted reprieve for their actions, then were we trying them for their actions or for their religion? If what we do is what we hang for, cause and effect is pretty much what you can boil all religion down to, including the religion of the law.

So, it is irrelevant if the surrendered Yakub feels regret now, anymore than he felt it after he reached Pakistan with his brother and decided India was better. That was probably because he realised he’d have to commit to being angry and blowing up things all the time in Pakistan. In India he was happy being a nice CA, winning awards, making money, buying flats, exporting meat. He thought he could go back.

The thing is, you see Yakub, after 1993, none of us could go back. There is something irreversible about a bomb going off around you.

We look under our seats for bombs, the police check all two wheelers at naka bandis, vehicles parked unmanned for days get towed and the bags we leave behind in trains get all bomb disposaled. That’s all for you. For what you did that made it okay for everyone who thought you were a hero to do later. You changed the world alright.

So you can rail about the deal you made. No one who died got to be in on that deal. No one who lived despite, got to be in on that deal. No one got to pick an anniversary not to die on. See their wife and child one last time. They didn’t get to say okay I’ll tell you who the masterminds are if you let me off for good behaviour. They didn’t get to rail at a judge and curse the justice system. You were jury and judge and executor all in one. And you chose to be that.

That’s the thing with rape, and bombs, and riots. You have to think about what you were happy about before you set those out. The d***, the RDX, the hate. Because once you do that, you don’t get to undo it. People get scared, people get violated, people are set on trajectories they don’t turn back from. And this is not just other people.

It’s a small thing they teach you in nursery school. Point three fingers at others and one points back at you. They make you say it over and over until you are like ‘wtf why do I have to say this, it’s so pointless’. And then one day it starts to make sense. Your mother tells you to count your blessings, and you don’t. They tell you to kiss your kids before you leave home because you never know what happens that day, and you forget. They tell you to look at the larger picture, put things in context, not contribute to the harm in the world. And you think, ‘hey, I’ll just finance this one terror module and change the world.’ But you also think I can be a CA again and buy one more flat for my daughter and her husband one day. You assume that when you change the world, your place in it will not change. Which dumb*** school did you learn that from?

By the time you realise you should have put that money into a community awareness programme to teach down and out kids not to get into all this stuff, your mugshot looks nothing like your fake passport photo once did. Because all the regret in the world doesn’t buy you a one way ticket from karma.

Even if all you did was serve tea at the meetings to pick out the plant points, you still didn’t stop innocents from dying. One tip off could have saved hundreds. They also serve who only stand and serve.

Those who choose death for others don’t get to choose their life. I guess it’s a choice another’s life in your hands makes for you. You live with the consequences. It’s what they say about sages. You may have the power to curse, but each curse consumes lifetimes of tapasya, so curse wisely. The power to destroy never comes without the power to destroy yourself.

The only reason Memon came back was he looked at what lay ahead – Pakistan – and thought he would rather choose to pick his punishment. Who can blame him? If you ask me, the only circumstance under which I would like to see Yakub Memon live, is in exile, on a one way flight to Pakistan to meet the people he collaborated with and sold out in return for the peace of his own conscience. His death would not be on India’s hands. And his life would be in those of his own choices.

These are the constitutions of death penalties. The choices we make come back to hang us.

Nobody hanged Yakub Memon. Many fathers didn’t come back that day. Pity he didn’t look to see if he would be one of them.