Tomorrow is another day

It has been a black day today. As visuals and news about the siege at Mumbai’s hotels permeates through my living room, I am filled with despair and sadness. Sadness; for all the mindless tragedy that is unfolding, for all the innocent people held hostage, for the families of our police officers, the celebrated faces as well as the unknown men who have been matyred.

Terrorism is hateful and terrorists are the scum of the earth. I find it hard to conceive what drives these men, what ideologies they believe and live by. To see young men so blinded by religious hate and bigotry , stooping to such cold-blooded, planned, mass murder is scary as well as shocking. Honestly, I am myself surprised by my irrational sadness and fear. It isn’t as if Mumbai is new to terrorist attacks-we have had enough of them in the past too…I think the answer lies in the “we have had enough” phrase, in the sense of déjà vu’, the sense of hopelessness. Truly, in this case, familiarity doesn’t breed contempt: familiarity breeds fear.

News channels have said it’s the worse attack in India till date. Though they were speaking in terms of numbers, I somehow feel that the psychology of it hurts even more. It was an attack which began at night and then it raged on throughout the night when people were unaware and blissfully asleep. I feel guilty about dismissing the initial reports as hyperbole, for believing that things would settle down in an hour or two with some expendable collateral damage. I feel guilty that while such happenings were unfolding outside, I was cooped up all-night within the closed air-conditioned confines of my room, more bothered with trying to tick off ‘Topics to be read” on my list for my exam. It was only when my Mom woke up at 3.30 a.m to see the TV and as news of deaths of the ATS chief himself along with other key aides filtered through; I realized the enormity and the scale of the attacks. While I swotted, Mumbai burnt.

I feel bad for the families of the police officers. Nobody could have ever imagined that a response to a late-night distress call could have such horrific circumstances. It was only yesterday morning that I had seen Hemant Karkare speaking to the media and then to know 24 hours later of his death was disturbing, to say the least. Same holds true for the deaths of the other top-brass. These were men, highly trained and highly reputed and if they could be shot down like that, then it underlines how even more vulnerable we all are.

The hotel Taj has always been a landmark of Mumbai. Many people, including my relatives from Orissa on coming down here, in the early Nineties, would go to see the Gateway and then marvel at the hotel Taj. People have been known to sit in the till-now free-for-all lobby of the Taj, gape, gawk and then go back home with stars in their eyes. The Taj has always been synonymous with the glamour and allure of Mumbai. But as the dome of the Taj burnt, as smoke and dust swirled around, it metaphorically seemed as if even my hopes and dreams were being reduced to ashes.

Yes, Mumbai has always been the city of dreams. 22 years ago when my Mom came to the city as a new bride from a small town in Orissa, she was considered lucky by most friends and well-wishers. But now, most parents have become wary of sending kids here, partly due to the attacks and partly due to MNS propanganda ( But let me not digress into that story). People have always emigrated with high hopes to this city, believing nothing is impossible but this has virtually been a death-knell for us. As Sonia Gandhi has put it rightly, ‘It’s not only about security, it’s also about prestige”. I think the usual noises will be made about “the spirit of Mumbai” and all that but I think it is all pure bullshit now. I think, this time, average Mumbaikars like me have been tested beyond the limits of endurance.

Politicians have started descending like vultures, making the right noises at the wrong time as usual. But frankly the security lapses are deplorable. This isn’t the first time nor will it be the last time. These terrorists crossed the international borders at the sea unintercepted and they sailed right below the noses of the Coast Guards and the Navy undetected to arrive at the Gateway. This only highlights the loopholes and the deficiencies that exist in our border patrolling and the entry-exit checkpoints into the country. If exclusive places like the Taj and the Trident with their well-oiled security mechanisms could have been rendered so vulnerable to infiltration and internal attacks, then spare a thought for the other rowdy, crowded public places in Mumbai. And to add salt to our wounds, we have e-mails from these terror outfits mocking our inefficiency and the bitter reality that “the Army and ATS do not have the weaponry to deal with ours sophisticated weapons”.

Now I am not an analyst. I don’t know and neither want to know the hows and whys of these attacks, the funding, the finances, the brains and the technicalities. All I care for as an ordinary self-respectable citizen, is an assurance of safety, the right to live without fear and the right to plan for innocuous things like an exam-ending celebration, a lunch date, a movie outing with friends and other such simple pleasures.

But is wishful thinking right? Because it is a war brewing out there right now. No easy solutions and no easy answers. In the last hour or so that I’ve spent typing this out, the situation outside still remains unchanged like over the past 24 hours…everything is in a limbo while we wait for a reasonable resolution with bated breaths and anxious eyes. In the meantime, there’s nothing much we can do except hope and pray, wait and watch…

All of you, reading this keep your fingers crossed and be safe…Take care and God bless.

P.S. Please think b4 u comment