Mumbai, a bleeding city
2008-12-04 10:49
Cape Town - If there was one thing I felt in India, it was safe. I would clutch my handbag to my chest in true South African fashion, but not once did anyone try to snatch it. The market wallahs would laugh at my strange accent and give back the 500 rupee note I'd given instead of 100 rupees.
Which made the now notorious events of November 26 all the more frightening and unexpected.
I wasn't in Mumbai when teams of gunmen walked casually into several public places and sprayed those sitting, eating and talking with bullets. If I was, I may have been wandering outside the magnificent Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel as I had done just a week earlier, during my visit to that buzzing city.
Its towering facade had impressed and delighted with its mesh of Renaissance, Mughal and Gothic architecture. Like Mumbai, it stood brash and confident, despite its contradictions. A week later smoke billowed out as fires started by the terrorists ate at parts of the hotel. The emblem of that non-stop city appeared wounded and its people stood still in shock as the truth hit home. They were not bulletproof. No amount of cheerful denial, no amount of confidence could protect them against those hell-bent on bloodshed.
Killed and injured
I missed it by a week. There were others whose brush with danger was far closer and still others who hadn't been so lucky. At least 188 people were killed in the co-ordinated attacks at eight different sites across Mumbai, and about 300 injured.
As a fifth-generation Indian in South Africa, it was my first visit to this sprawling country. I was in New Delhi on Thursday November 27 when I woke to news of the shootings the night before. The family I was staying with were gathered in front of their television sets, their brows furrowed in worry. They were former South Africans, who had made India home for the past 16 years.
They still felt safe. They had chosen to be here. But like me, they were shaken. Everyday people and tourists were the ones targeted in these senseless attacks. People who had nothing to do with the power games and politicking between countries. People used as pawns in an ideological war that seemed to have so little to do with the market wallahs, the rickshaws, the buzzing cities and the warm and colourful people that made up the face of the India I was fast falling in love with.
In the newspapers, Bollywood actors, models and sport stars expressed their shock and rage. Previous attacks had caused similar emotions but the outcry always died down. This time seemed different. This time Mumbai's citizens wanted politicians who will protect them, as India's problematic security and defence systems were exposed in the wake of the attacks.
I left India as the showdown between security forces and terrorists was coming to an end at the Taj Hotel. I was compelled to return to Mumbai to catch my return flight to Johannesburg.
Site of attack?
As I waited in New Delhi airport, I watched the screens with other silent passengers as the death toll mounted. I was apprehensive about returning to The Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport. The Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station had been a scene of one of the most brutal attacks, and there had been a taxi blast at Vile Parle near the airport, but it was uncertain whether this was connected to the other nine attacks.
As luck would have it, I was subjected to nothing more than repeated security checks and various items in my luggage were prodded and opened. Still, I no longer felt as blissfully safe as I had on those first heady days.
Then there was the knowledge of those who were not as fortunate as I was. The woman having dinner with her husband of more than twenty years who was shot as she stood up at the wrong time. The 26-year-old who was killed at Café Leopold where she was meeting a chat buddy for the first time.
I felt sick as I read the news reports on the way home, all resounding with the same sense of injustice, confusion and anger.
The city continues to bleed as the true cost of those days of terror is felt. This is one wound that will not easily heal.