It is a city that never gives up. It is the city that deals with disaster by living with the spirit that typifies its people – indomitability. It is a city that cannot be beaten, no matter what it has to face. It is my city. It is Mumbai.
Yesterday, July 11, 2006, was a day that Mumbaikars pray they will never have to face again. We faced it once 13 years ago and managed to recover fabulously well. Yesterday was slightly different. A series of eight well timed and efficiently executed bombs went off on what is known as the ‘lifeline’ of the city, the commuter trains. The perpetrators chose well. They found routes that were heavily peopled, from main station to various destinations, along which they would probably never be noticed. They targeted trains on a route that will almost always be well travelled, packed to over capacity during rush hour, morning and evening. They selected sites that would be crowded, but not so crowded that they could not leave a little something in the compartments. And they opted for first class, where the people are said to be more elite, more protected, more careful. And, within about ten minutes, the bombs went off, detonated by radio timer, it is believed, causing death, grievous injury and terror. Ironically, people who jumped off the train they were on to escape the blast were killed by an oncoming locomotive.
There was instant chaos. The trains stopped. People were flung out, or managed to jump off. Others were not as lucky, trapped by debris and bodies, some torn into pieces by the explosions. The police arrived, just like they did in old Hindi movies, late. Meanwhile, there were lives to be saved, and local Mumbaikars swung into the kind of action they are so good at. They poured out of their homes and offices to (admittedly) gawk, but they also got down and dirty (literally), carrying bodies in bedsheets, salving the injured, giving passers by in traffic-locked buses and cars water and snacks and beginning the job of clearing the debris, aiding local municipal workers and firemen. And they used cameras and mobile phones to capture images full of pain and death, sending them in to various newspapers and television channels – whose staff had not yet made it to the various blast sites. These pictures went all over the world, alarming friends, family and India-watchers.
Which had the expected fallout. Friends from Delhi, Bangalore, Karachi, Dubai and the US called or emailed in to find out if we (my father and I) were ok. Being reassured, finally understanding that we were not at any risk, they asked again, just to make sure that we spoke truly. Then they wanted to know how far away we had been from the bombs and whether the blasts would affect our normal lives. Is it very bad, they demanded. One close buddy had even said that she was coming over to pack us into her suitcase and truck us over to Denver, where she lives, where no one blows up people or indulges in myriad acts of terrorism. Another said that her country’s president and people were as shocked by the carnage as we were, and that they swore that they were not in any way connected to the violence. And we exchanged news about who was doing what where, promising to visit each other as soon as our lives allowed.
Today life seems to be back to more or less normal. People are back at work after a night stuck on a train or on the roads. Attendance is almost at its average best, with everyone determined to show that they are unbeaten. Trains have started running, speeding through blood-stained stations and past shattered compartments that once held laughing, sleeping, singing commuters. And we of Mumbai show once again just how proud we are to be part of the great and wonderful city.
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