(Published in People Magazine, 1 December 2008, days after the Mumbai terror attacks)
My family’s first outing since bloody Wednesday was to a mall near our home. The place wasn’t as packed as other Saturday evenings. Yet, there were enough people around who, like us, needed the reassurance that normal life was still possible – something we’d begun to doubt since the mayhem began on Wednesday, and continued into Thursday, and even as we went to bed on Friday night, Saturday threatened to be no different (which, thankfully, it was). The food court, as usual, was the busiest place in the mall. As one looked on to the subdued crowd of couples, college students, and families with kids, one couldn’t help imagine what horror might ensue if someone rushed in and fired indiscriminately at the unsuspecting diners. Thoughts like these drain the joy from life. Yet, it is something we must live with from now on – with the probability of sudden and deadly intrusion into our most innocent and lovely moments.
The ‘spirit of Mumbai’ was first lauded during the floods of 2005. After the train blasts of 2006, it was exhumed, dusted like an old blanket, and waved about like a banner. Like some dependable old saint, the ‘spirit of Mumbai’ has repeatedly come to our rescue, calming our nerves, making us feel less stupid for allowing ourselves to be targeted and screwed-over and killed, again and again and again. Mumbai may be drowning, blasted out of its wits, and a sitting duck for every psychopath organization out to make its gruesome point, but at least we Mumbaikars have had the fortitude to keep working, to keep traveling and smiling no matter how many bodies we’ve had to step over to get to our destination. It’s no wonder that inept politicians and corrupt government officials have loved the ‘spirit of Mumbai’. Despite repeated instances of systemic corruption and official dereliction of duty, we’ve carried on, often without a choice, always with the cheerfulness of slaves.
Know what? This time the slaves are angry. They are truly, inconsolably, and immeasurably furious. And the god-damned spirit of Mumbai can shove it. While people like us were being systematically and cold-bloodedly butchered in other parts of our own city, the rest of us had to pack our lunches, pack into trains, and trudge to office, pretending like it was just another normal working day.
Past tragedies have made us experts of aftermaths. We know how to forget, how to move on. But this time, we were asked to do the impossible: we were told to disregard the evidence of our own senses. We could hear the gunshots and feel the explosions. We could see the plumes of smoke. We could smell the stench of rotting blood as we got off our trains. And every uniformed gun-toting policeman was a terrifying reminder of the battle unfolding just kilometers away.
The attack on Mumbai lasted long enough to make us despise our own resilience. If only we weren’t so well behaved; if only we weren’t so brave and hardworking and good. The whole of New York City stayed shut for days after 9/11. In most parts of Mumbai, life remained normal even during what is unimaginatively being called ‘India’s 9/11’. (Journalistic laziness has truly reached its nadir.)
People who claim that Mumbaikars have no choice but to get to work are underrating the affluence of our city. For every Dharavi-dwelling peon who would starve if he didn’t toil, there are at least a couple of moneyed merchants living in Breach Candy or Malabar Hill who could afford to live comfortably without ever getting out of their homes. It is on the shoulders of these affluent, privileged people – and make no mistake, there are hundreds of thousands of them in Mumbai – that the responsibility of our city’s well being truly lies. This time, by striking at the very playgrounds of rich Mumbai – the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Trident-Oberoi Hotel – the terrorists have embroiled the city’s high and mighty. These are people with contacts and financial muscle, and if they decide to, they can use their clout to force politicians to make this city safer not just for their own employees and business interests, but for all seventeen million of us.
The ‘spirit of Mumbai’ may as yet have a chance to break free from the stranglehold of cliché and to become an active force that can inspire the rest of the nation. Those of us directly unaffected ought to be no less enraged by the attack on our city. The important thing will be to keep our anger going until there are no further occasions when we must be praised for our so-called spirit.
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