It helped being there than here. Being up front, than viewing it from a distance. Knowing I was not directly affected and yet thinking how well I was lying to myself, by saying just that.
Every Mumbaikar, wherever he/ she was in the world, was broken-hearted last Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday.....and even today as I type this.
Wednesday night, as the attacks started, Mumbai went to war. For the next 60 hours, I sat; one eye glued to the television, the other to the newspapers. With family, making calls to everyone I knew in the city, now bereaving, now smirking at some, with multiple lumps in my throat.
We were on vacation in a city we love. Where we grew up, where time stands still even today, each time we go visit her. Which is our first home. And perhaps, one, where we will return to grow old in.
The plan was to go to the "coolest" places in the city; to see how Mumbai was living it up, global style. Tiffins, Souk, Wasabi were on the 'to-check-out' list. Would or would not have happened, in the course of this tight trip back home, but they were places we wanted to go see. Re-living the old days by walking along Colaba causeway, was on the list; perhaps a chilled beer at Leopold too or maybe Cafe Mondegar. The somewhat veiled layer of contemporary art galleries in South Mumbai were to be visited; perhaps the only places on the list that got checked out and hence checked off.
All the rest, have been postponed. Almost indefinitely. Like the trip to the WTC towers, which never happened. And now never will.
Even as we hailed a taxi the next day, a few miles away from South Mumbai, I couldnt help but stare at the taxi-driver. And question his identity ? How would I know? On the highway, young Mumbai lads, rode their bikes, as always armed with backpacks. Why did some of those backpacks look bigger than the others? Cops strewn all over the city, looked like NSG's. Maharashtrian or North Indian, most had machine guns. What if these were just armed terrorists in disguise?Surely, its really easy to rent/ buy cop uniforms isnt it?
Life went on. Some obituaries were read, some just skimmed over. Its not often, a mom, a dad and a son die together or a husband-wife have a common obituary. Rarely do cremation grounds get over-packed.
Five star hotels in Mumbai are now beyond access to the common man, who could walk in and spend a few hours in the air-conditioned lobby to beat the sweltering heat outside. Pretending to be for a few moments, what he was not; he could once have strolled through their shopping arcades or had a coffee in their coffee shops, express his delightful voyeurism at the upper echelons of the city, live their lives.
Life will go on, even now. It will be filled with rage, desperation, vengeance and despair. It will also be filled with hope, revolution, resolution and perhaps change. The operative word of these times.
A snippet I read last week in the Times of India. A desperate relative of a businessman trapped in the Taj Hotel, called the hotel reception at 4 am, after failed attempts to reach the businessman's cell phone. Obviously not expecting a response and possibly thinking to himself, how silly he was being by even hoping for the same, he was shocked a few seconds later. A voice picked up the phone at the other end and replied "Good morning. This is the Taj Mahal Hotel. How may I help you?"
To Mumbai, with love.