As I said earlier, now you may all know that Mumbai was under attack. What you may not know is that I was very close to being a potential victim. I was in Mumbai from the 24th to the 26th of November attending a workshop on the Electrodynamic Coupling of the Atmospheric Regions (ECAR) in Panvel. On the evening of the 26th, I was told by the organisers that due to Mumbai's traffic snarls, it would be advisable for me to catch the local from my hotel in Belapur, to Mumbai CST (Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus), Mumbai's main railway station. As I had not travelled by Mumbai local in a long time, I asked that someone from the organising committee accompany me. The organisers agreed and around 6:50PM local time, we had left Belapur for CST.
The local took around an hour to arrive and with my train to Hyderabad leaving at 9:50PM, I had decided to have some food before boarding the train to get a good night's sleep. Therefore, myself and my friend from the organising committee went to the IRCTC (Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation) run food court outside Mumbai CST and started ordering food. While waiting for food, I had made an off the cuff remark of seeing people walk through the metal-detectors without any security frisking. Little was I to realize what would occur.
After dinner, I wanted to move towards the First Class Waiting hall, as I had a AC2-Tier ticket. I was advised that it would be better to check if the train had arrived on the platform, and then make a choice. As my train was already on the platform, I boarded it, packed my luggage and started to make friends with other passengers. At around 9:50 or so, the train had left the platform, and I was in an upbeat mood, at having attended and presented at my first ever conference. The first signs of trouble came around 30 minutes in the journey, when one of the other passengers got a call saying there were bomb blasts at CST station. Rumours started to circulate, and ultimately after 15 minutes of discussion and phone calls, the passengers settled on the theory of “gunshots in the Taj Hotel” and went to sleep. Only when I woke up in the morning, did I realize the magnitude of the situation, and how close I was to being a victim.
Off late, I have been asking myself “what if” questions, either sub-conciously, or consciously. Many of these, I do not have answer to, for I know not why I was lucky enough to escape the carnage ripped apart in Mumbai. Rationalizing my escape also seems to be a hard task, for neither am I extremely intelligent or talented to survive. If anything, I was at the right place at the right time.
As I cycle through various news articles, I pay particular attention to the CST photographs, with my mind acting as a time machine wherein I place myself once again at CST station, and trace my footsteps through the floor, where blood is now spattered.
Aftermath of the attack, I see great clamour for "change". At such times, the cynic in me arises and I feel like shouting out "change for change's sake accomplishes nothing". Metal detectors at public places are worthless if they're a) switched off, b) malfunctioning, c) working but not being policed well enough. As Ness Wadia said today, "we look to beat the system and until we change our own mindset, this is what will happen". It sometimes feels like for us NRIs, a trip to India becomes a license to disregard every rule we know of, simple "because we can". Footboarding on trains, bribing authorities, etc and then gleefully recounting these tales become 2nd nature to us. Why?
It is a long post and I must take leave. However before I do, a few words on the "Spirit of Mumbai" and the "Spirit of India". These "spirits" work only as well as the mechanism of those who are charged with looking after us. The "Spirit of NY" is lauded because ordinary folk got together with the police on 9/11 and stood together as one. While the "Spirit of Mumbai/India" will work once or twice, this cannot be used as a convenient line to mask the ineptitude of our servants. If we pay for the people who we put in power, then effectively they become our servants. Therefore, if you want to see the real Spirit of India, then let us reform ourselves so that Tagore's immortal words
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
In closing, to any of those who entertain thoughts of harming MY India, I will let you know you'll only get the keys to Rashtrapathi Bhavan, over my dead body.
"They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, not my obedience. -Mahatma Gandhi"
PS: I also plan to visit the Taj Hotel on my next visit to Mumbai. I might not be as rich to order a meal, but I will order tea, observe a minute's silence and then drink the tea as a challenge to those without a conscience.
