India, Oct. 31 -- Tombola is a fun game. Easy to organise, it caters to birthday parties and other occasions of social conviviality in countless homes, clubs and cantonments across the country. Besides the cash prizes attached to various milestones in the game, the fun part comes from the catchy phrases attached to the numbers as they are called out. Number 1 is "Lone Ranger", number 3 is "Happy Family" and so on. Many of the phrases could potentially be objected to as sexist or body-shamers: 11 is "sexy legs", 6 is "bottom heavy", 88 is "two fat ladies", and 17 is "often been kissed". Mostly, nobody really minds. But the other day I heard a new one. To fill the intolerable ennui of a couple of dull days that fell between Karva Chauth and Diwali, a group of well-dressed ladies was meeting up for a kitty party in a popular eatery. Papdi chaat, aloo tikkis and chhach were already on the table. Tombola was in full swing. The next number was called out, the voice all husky and mysterious: 8,4 eighty-four, Blue Star. "Yes!" said Peroxide Blonde; "Oh no! Just missed!" said Dark Glasses. And the game went on. Except my food turned to ashes in my mouth. 1984, the annus horribilis, as part of a game! Blue Star, a tombola catch phrase! I wondered how many of the kitty party participants were old enough to remember Operation Blue Star and all that followed. And if they were, how could they not care? Blue Star remains a painful chapter in independent India's history, a vicious gash on our democratic polity and secular society. Questions are still being asked about the devious politics that led to the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and militancy in Punjab, about the extraordinary extent of weaponry gathered by the militants inside the holy precincts of the Golden Temple, about the other options available to the State and about the actual conduct of the army operation; former chief secretary of Punjab R I Singh (who was deputy commissioner, Amritsar in June 1984) has called it a "disaster - ill conceived, poorly planned, terribly executed". What remains beyond debate is that Blue Star was deeply shocking to the psyche of the entire Sikh community. Even the large majority that had no sympathy with Bhindranwale's narrative felt humiliated; however necessary the need to cleanse the temple of militancy, there surely was a better way than sending in tanks, APCs and machine guns into the holiest Sikh shrine. The killing of innocent pilgrims trapped in the complex, the burning of the library with its valuable archive of historical manuscripts, the desecration of the Akal Takht - the temporal seat of the Sikh faith - with heavy artillery, still haunt the Sikh imagination. The nightmare continued. In an act of vengeance, Sikh guards shot and killed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the circle of violence entered the next level of hell. Every Sikh was seen as the assassin of the Prime Minister, deserving capital punishment. An orgy of greed, lust, communal frenzy and political opportunism, of an intensity not seen since Partition, was let loose in Delhi. The capital turned into a large killing field; Sikhs were pulled out of buses and trains and burnt alive, Sikh houses marked by collaborators were looted and set on fire. Across the Yamuna, entire colonies of Sikhs were set upon. The men had their heads bashed in with iron rods or were garlanded with burning tyres drenched in kerosene oil or were set alight with white phosphorous; the women were raped even as they were made to watch the macabre dance to death of their husbands and sons. Civil servants, army officers and prominent personalities who had done the country proud had to hide in cupboards, car boots, in their neighbours' lofts and in foreign embassies to escape the rampaging killers; many shed their long hair and never quite recovered the confidence of their identity. Meanwhile, the law-and-order forces dawdled, hands in their pockets, and watched over the creation of an entire world of widows and a generation of orphans who have since lived in misery - begging at traffic crossings, succumbing to drug addiction, cowering in self-shame in resettlement colonies. Commissions have come and gone, but justice has been elusive. Nevertheless, the Sikhs have, by and large, recovered. Their hard-working nature and never-say-die spirit have prevailed. Putting aside the trauma of 1984, they are building the nation, protecting its borders, and keeping its flag flying in every field. But we need to respect their tragedy and suffering, not trivialise it. The gross insensitivity of using Blue Star in conjunction with the number 84 in a Tombola call is galling. 1984 was not a game: a pogrom never is....