This is one hell of a crazy city. An aged superstar, well past his prime, who had a massive heart attack a couple of months back, dies. And the whole city is thrown into a frenzy of grief -- or a show thereof.

I mean, why would you burn tires, stop buses, close down shops, stop autos from running and bring the city to the brink of riot out of grief? Where's all the anger coming from? More importantly, who is it directed against? A cruel fate that takes away the hero at, well, the time of life when it was not quite unexpected? The doctors who couldn't save this one precious life, Karnataka's pride? Veerappan, for kidnapping him years ago and possibly causing enough trauma to take away a few years of his life?

Even as I write, there are groups of young louts on the streets, circling around the neighbourhood on bikes and crying slogans that sound positively bloodthirsty. They would be frightening if one could get over the absurdity of the situation. All shops around my place are shut, even the chemists. Maybe they are all mourning, too crazed by grief to stand there and sells Crocin. It is possible.

Earlier in the day when the news just broke, I sniggered when people said 'let's go home quickly. The city's going to turn crazy very soon.' I was condescending towards a friend who called to ask me to stock up on supplies because the shops might be shut for the better part of next week. I thought, secretly amused but very happy to leave office a whole hour early, how we unwittingly contribute to general panic.

They seem to have known what they were talking about, for they had all lived through Rajkumar's abduction when schools, colleges, markets and cinema halls were shut in the city for a fortnight.

There was this man on TV standing outside Dr Rajkumar's gate who started keening 'annnnnnnaaaaa' the minute the TV cameras turned towards him.

Grief?