Tomorrow is one year since the bombs went off in trains all over the rail network in Mumbai. It was a dreadful night, circumstances that I hope never get repeated as long as the city exists. I walked through the front door of my home and found the television news blaring photos and sound bites of the blasts. And, as I asked Father what was going on, the telephone rang. It was a close friend in London, crazy with worry about whether I was safe. She had, of course, in the panic of it all, forgotten that I no longer commuted by train and wanted to be sure that I was in one piece and well. I was, obviously. The bombs had gone off when I was on my way home by car, and neither my driver or me knew anything about what was going on. The news over the next few hours and days kept us informed.
But I have been closer to such violence than I would normally like to believe. Many years ago, soon after I started working, Mumbai became a target of terrorist bombings. This was in 1993, when I was still discovering parts of the city that was my home, from a new perspective. I knew it as my parents’ daughter, I knew it as a schoolchild, I knew it as a student on break from college away. But I was learning it as a young working woman, and that education came from walking around, talking to people and wandering in and out of stores and cafes. That day, I was in a store in Flora Fountain, buying a T-shirt for Father, the day before we were leaving the city for a short vacation. As I walked out of the shop with my package, there was a dull ‘boom’ sound. Soon after, people started running.
I was puzzled. There was no taxi to be had, for some strange reason, but I was close enough to the newspaper office I worked in at the time to stroll back, albeit purposefully. I got there and to my desk and then started hearing the stories. Friends of mine – reporters and photographers – rushed in and out, giving me bits of information. It was more than enough to terrify me. Father was to have been near the Stock Exchange building at the time, or so I believed. Mum was worried into anger at home. There were no mobile phones then – or not as popular as they soon became, so I couldn’t get in touch with my father, and neither could my mother do so. But all was well and he arrived at the office soon after that.
We got into a train heading for where we lived and stashed my packages on the rack overhead. There was a certain level of fear that we could smell, even as a few people filed into the compartment and found seats. One man looked up and demanded to know whose that large black bag was – it was not actually something I owned, but I was in temporary possession; I did not explain that to him, just saying that it was mine. Someone else sat down opposite us and looked furtively around, clutching his small handbag close to him. And three men stood near the door stopping anyone who looked like they did not have business in the first class section from getting in.
The ride home was swift and uneventful. Mum greeted us with more relief than the situation actually deserved. And we left the next morning for a week-long trip. But the events of that day, unfolding through television reportage, the newspapers and long-distance phone calls from friends in the office over the next few days told us what a horror story the situation really was. We were in far-away Bangalore while Mumbai reeled under the shock of the attacks, but we felt the same shock and fear that our neighbours back home did.
And then, last year, it seemed as if it was happening again. Once more, we as a city and a people have bounced back. Reams written about made it seem as if Mumbai could manage anything. Mumbaikars can, we proclaimed with pride, survive any disaster. But we need to learn from it, each time. Which makes me ask: Have we learned anything at all?
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