Remembering 26/11

A full year has gone by. Have things changed? I do not know. I only hope so for the sake of the world that we live in, for the sake of the millions of innocent people who inhabit that world, for the sake of India and Indians. I can only pray that no one has to stop doing things in order to live; lest he or she be in danger of being killed by unknown, unseen, uncompromising and unwanted sub-human beings who masquerade as "saviours" but are no less than the lowest of low terrorists.

So what can I say today - one year after the disaster of Mumbai 26/11/08? So much to say in so little space. It may be a good idea to recall the words that had come to my mind last year...during the actual trauma that India experienced. At that time I had addressed my piece to Mumbai and the indomitable Mumbaikars. A year later I rededicate it to all who were hurt and touched by the horrors which are , nodoubt, ingrained in the hearts and minds of every Indian and all good people, anywhere in the world. Do read on and relive the anguish we all shared last year.



MUMBAI!

I was born in Purnea, an obscure town in Bihar. I traveled with my parents to various places till I reached Kolkata at the age of seven. I lived in Kolkata for seventeen years before I shifted to the National Capital Region. It has been forty years since then that I have lived in North India. Yet, on the 26th and 27th of November ’08, I cried my heart out for Mumbai, a city where I have never lived, and its showpiece the Taj Mahal Hotel!

My relationship with Mumbai was initially restricted to a few business trips during my working days. Nowadays, ever since Rupa, our daughter, moved there along with her husband and children, my visits to the city of dreams have increased manifold. My wife Kumkum, however, is a frequent visitor, courtesy her job. She invariably stays at the The Trident, still popular under its former sobriquet of The Oberoi Towers. And thus it has come to be that there has been hardly a trip to Mumbai when Kumi or both of us have not taken a turn along the Apollo Bunder, taken a launch ride from the Gateway Of India, enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee at the Sea Lounge, dined at the Kandahar, and invariably, gazed long at and photographed the magnificent façade of the Taj Mahal Hotel, either from the vicinity of the Gateway or from aboard some vessel out at sea. At every step I would recall a few words from my childhood, spoken by my father, that the Taj in “Bombay” is one of the most photographed buildings in India, because of its sheer immensity and grandeur.

What a sight the Taj hotel presents to any seafarer as he cruises the waters off the shores of Mumbai….an iconic beauty which proclaims to all the world that this is India; a modern face of an ancient civilization! So it must have been for the emperor of British India in 1911 and so it must be for any tourist coming into an independent India from distant shores, the Elephanta Caves, or for that matter from anywhere across the seas, near or far.

Was it any different for ten young men who set sail from Karachi on a fateful November night with black destruction in their hearts, destruction of the soul of humanity, yet again? Did they, even for a moment, pause to think in remorse that they were setting out to obliterate a magnificent symbol which has drawn millions of people from far and wide to embrace this enchantress of the east called India? Did they, on first gazing at the splendour of the Taj Mahal’s facade from the Arabian Sea, even for a minute feel the futility of violating this beautiful symbol of a vibrant nation?

Did they hold so much hatred for the people of India to be the agents of a massacre of such devastating proportions? Did they have no human compunctions about killing, killing, killing…..hundreds of innocent people who did not know them from Adam and who had harmed them in no way, ever?

Thousands of Indians who have never visited Mumbai conjure up pictures of the Taj in their minds when they think of the city. Children are taught to recognize photographs of the palatial building and told to identify it with the city of Mumbai. Every visitor poses in front of the imposing building to be captured in cameras by their loved ones. A trip to see the Gateway and the Taj is a “must do” on every itinerant traveller’s check-list.

For, the Taj Mahal hotel is not only a preserve of the lucky Mumbaikars who get the opportunity of frequent interface with it, but also a proud symbol of a proud nation which holds it as a symbol of India and its great Indianness. The Taj Mahal hotel is as much their own as it is for the Mumbaikars. The Mumbaikars are as much fellow-Indians as the people of the rest of the country. When Mumbai bleeds so does the rest of India. Mumbai’s miseries are also our miseries. That is why I cried my heart out this November.

I shall never know what compels a few human beings to feel and transmit such vitriolic hatred for other human beings. I shall never know what drives them to plunge their souls into such titanic depths of barbarism. I shall also never understand what motivates people who teach others to hate for hatred’s sake, to seek out and kill unknown people by the thousands, and who preach and glorify what resides in the darkest of dark recesses of the sub-human mind. If this means that I do not understand religion and the tenets of life, then so be it!

As Mumbai lies maimed and crippled, I grieve for the wonderful people who live in this wonderful city of ours. The oft-quoted “spirit of Mumbai” will no doubt rise in quick-time and help the city once again to stand up on its feet. The only dark cloud that hovers overhead is the cloud of politics and our politicians. For, who can forget that, heinous as it was, this attack managed to unite all Indians to the core like seldom before despite the best efforts of our politicians whose collective and myopic vision hardly ever extends beyond the lucre of the vote bank!

I reach out to Mumbaikars….I know that you will soon pick yourselves up and resume your separate journeys with little fuss, great fortitude and immense dignity….as usual. When you do that as indeed now, we, the rest of India, shall be with you, right alongside.