India, June 9 -- Many years ago, while writing for the Asian Age, a paper that MJ Akbar owned, he wrote me a line I've never forgotten. "Never criticise anyone immediately after a tragedy." A rare bit of editorial wisdom. And so, though every fibre in me wants to take a red pen dipped in rage and scribble furiously over the lapses of our police forces-especially as yet another stampede shakes us, this time in Bangalore-I hold back.

No, this piece isn't about pointing fingers. Not today. Today, I mourn. I mourn not just the bodies that lay still after the crowd surge but the minds that never got the chance to awaken. Young lives, full of hope, full of hashtags, cut short before they could discover Truth. Not the kind sold to them in 280 c...