Across the road, six thin, sweaty boys with shirts tied atop their heads to shield them from the unrelenting sun are on a rooftop construction site. With Herculean effort, they are pulling a 30-foot-long thin log up to their spot. The logs are then cut and roped together to create a jungle gym-like outer casing to the building, where, with spiderman agility, the boys gracefully bring this building to life. (Note: There are no power tools, heavy machinery, lifts, or hard hats used or worn on these construction sites. It’s miraculous buildings go up as quickly as they do). Down on the road, a Muslim family--mother, father and children—begs a few rupees of the literati entering and exiting the bookstore. Their pleas, no doubt, are drowned out by the incessant horn harassment from the gridlock traffic behind them. Fancy cars continually pull up outside the building next door to drop off well-groomed children for the play meet at EuroKids. A small, pig-tailed girl dons a white T-shirt with “New York” scrawled across it in silver script. She cries for her father to walk in with her rather than her maid. He hops out of the car with his mobile precariously held to his ear by his shrugged shoulder as he reassuringly picks up his little girl.
Surprisingly, I feel a sense of relief at seeing this business-as-usual slice of city life. Last Friday, two days after the shootings began, I wandered out on a Darwinian escapade around the local streets. I was in need of food, and fresh air. I had spent the better part of the two previous days holed up in front of the T.V., watching the horrific scenes unfold just 10 miles down the road. I’m not going to say I have a sixth sense for terrorist attacks (although I’m sure that could increase job prospects upon my return), but I had a feeling something was going to happen here. The day I flew out of Newark en route to my new home halfway across the world, CNN news flashes across the airport plasma T.V.s advised of the bombings in Ahmedabad, India. Since then, there have been bomb blasts nearly everything month, including a number of them in crowded marketplaces in Delhi. Mumbai was sure to be on the hit list—it was just a matter of when. What occurred last week, however, was more calculated and brutal than what anyone could have predicted or expected. That became apparent to me when I went on my hunt to gather samosas and biryani to fill my groaning stomach. As terrorists continued their hide-and-seek death game in the grand Taj hotel, the streets of Bandra remained eerily quiet and empty. The few rickshaws and rickety bicycles that passed me on the street slowed to let me pass. Bewildered by their simple acts of compassion, I sprinted across just the same. Never have I longed for the life-threatening challenge of crossing the dizzying Mumbai roads as I did at that moment.
But I’m not going to be naïve about this: Mumbaikers aren’t obliviously carrying on life as before November 26. Nearly everyone I’ve talked to has been, in some way, affected by these tragic attacks. Yesterday, I went to a local high school with members of the Bandra Rotary Club for an HIV/AIDS awareness program. As we prepared for the 90 uniformed school children to join us, Rotarians imparted each other with stories of a brother in the rooftop restaurant at the Taj, visits to victims at local hospitals, and other narrow escapes by friends of friends. Everyone has a story, including me. Although I was safely in my bed that night, I logged on to the Bombay expat Web forum I’m a member of to see if everyone was OK. Every other Wednesday, there is a big meet-up at Henry Thames pub, just behind the Taj, and since I knew it was going on that night, I wanted to make sure all revelers had arrived back home safely. For the most part, they did; however, a Dutch guy named Benjamin, who often wrote in, was at an undisclosed location in the city, at the home of a stranger who had taken him in after he and a friend fled Leopold’s, a popular foreigner hangout. He recounted what had taken place: a grenade went off at the table next to him as flying shrapnel entered his body. They ran out a side entrance, and took shelter until the next day when he could get to the hospital. The doctors said he had tiny pieces of metal lodged in his cheek, pelvis, arm, and leg. The remnants of the horror of that night were too miniscule to remove, so he will have to be checked twice every time he passes airport security. Comparatively, he walked away unscathed, as nearly a dozen people lost their lives as they dined around him.
Last night at the Gateway of India, across the road from where the inferno blazed from the dome of Taj, a huge crowd—mostly 20-somethings, those riding the hitherto wave of India’s booming economy—turned out for a candlelight vigil in memory of the 179 victims. But what was meant to be a peaceful communal grieving broke out into a protest against government’s actions, or inactions more like. Indians are rightfully angry about what this attack exposed worldwide about what people here already know: that the police are woefully ill-equipped to protect the public; that public law enforcement money is used, instead, for private protection of the rich; that rampant bribery threatens the destruction of any systems in place; and that the government never tightened security or proactively responded to the attacks that have been plaguing the country.
I haven’t been in town since this has all taken place. The trip from Bandra to Colaba isn’t enjoyable even during the most peaceful of times. But, today, I have a our bi-weekly Art for Peace meeting at St. Xavier’s College, just behind Victoria Station, where bullets sprayed innocent commuters a week ago. The project has always been important to me, since communal tension is an inherent part of this religiously diverse metropolis. However, the discussions of how to create a more peaceful and trusting world seem to be more important and needed than ever.
My last swig of coffee is cold, so I’ll leave the comfort of my A/Ced Mumbai viewing post. It’s time to carry on with the rest of Mumbai, but, despite this city's resiliency, things just don't seem the same.
