As I tune in to media and the internet to follow the latest developments of the terror attacks, I can’t but helplessly cringe seeing the above images. I can’t help but wonder how removed I am from the real Mumbai. My emails/phone calls concerning the whereabouts and safety of my family and friends living in nearby areas of attack have been acknowledged and I am a bit pacified now. Having spent about 20 years in Mumbai, the attachment to the city (as I over-zealously describe in my post here) is but natural. Just a few weeks ago in September, I spent my summer in mumbai. My office was in close proximity to the Taj Hotel. I even had dinner with a few friends at the swanky hotel inside the Taj. I used to commute daily to the Chattrapati Shivaji terminus (formerly VT station, another target) and I even recall frequenting a stall, very close to the Taj, that sold masala milk or Energee during my college days in Mumbai. I even remember distinctly spending time with friends by the waterfront less than a hundred yards from the Taj’s gleaming Victorian facade.
Other rhetoric apart. I wonder if Mumbai is ever going to be the same again? This is India’s city of superlatives, where glamour and grinding poverty are equally ubiquitous. This is Maximum City. City of Dreams. Metropolis. This is a city where people come with a Dick Whittington vision of streets paved with gold, and for a happy few this turns out to be true. And now, the image of Mumbai as a tourist and business attraction is under siege. ‘Brand India’ is under duress. I am sure you will soon see statements in the press showing how Mumbai is up and about, is back on its feet despite such a setback, city that never sleeps ..whatever. I have seen and heard this quite too often everytime there is a tragedy like this. I am only confused if all this is just a way of helplessly turning the other way, maybe this hyperbole is our version of Charlie Brown’s security blanket ?!?!
