A few days ago, my cousin and her family moved out of the Taj hotel and into their home. If they hadn’t, they’d have been in a burning room in the Heritage wing. What has happend with the beautiful Taj hotel of Mumbai has turned the city from a “city of dreams” to a city of nightmares. A bunch of misguided youngsters who have convinced themselves that their god, sitting in his big gold office up in the sky, is smiling upon them as they rip through the city in an insanely violent rampage.
It’s unbelievable, numbling, bone chilling. I was watching a video of how a police vehicle had been jijacked and how the men inside it suddenly began to spray bullets all around them when the video seemed to fall down… apparently the video journalist was killed. Even from this far away in Delhi, every moment on television is blood curdling.
My best friend was supposed to be in Mumbai last night – when it all started – but didn’t go because he had to be there for his mother’s eye doctor appointment. My ex colleagues are somewhere in the chaos of the city, I hope, safe! I’m sure I’ll discover more and more people that one knows will turn out to be affected in some way. Every few hours someone comes up and says “two friends of mine are at Trident” or some such thing.
With all of this intense burning war on one of our top cities – our finanical capital in fact – the prime minister’s address to the nation made in his usual sing song calm voice sounds mellow and unreassuring. We will find these perpetrators and punish them… Ah, sure. Whoever these guys are, there are more where they came from. An endless supply of brainless non-individuals, ready to die, congratulating themselves on each act of violence, believing themselves to be righteous and good…
It’s going to happen again, isn’t it?
This is so horrible.
How could anyone think their god would be happy with this?
It’ll happen again, in India and else where in the world.
I’m sorry.
Oh Mala, I m ashamed to say while the news made me sad and angry, no furious, feeling very much the same as you do (about the ppl massacring and destroying, yet feeling righteous – that s the worst of the worst, morally, to any reasoning and feeling human being) – it did not come to my mind you probably have family there!!
I am glad at least your cousin and family were so lucky, and hope your friends and family are safe at least. I can only imagine how horrible it will be over the years to come across people whose families have been destroyed on this day.
I can imagine how shallow politicians’ speeches must sound at this point in time.. I hope the tragedy is not going to be a personal tragedy for you, if a national one and a trauma of your people it surely has become already..
Thanks, Lorrie, Sajia, Dina.
I don’t think I myself thought of whether I’d know people who were in Mumbai and caught up in this — I just suddenly remembered that a cousin of mine just moved to Bombay. Oh, Lorrie, you’d asked why it’s called Mumbai? Well, there are dumb politicians who have nothing else to crib about and work at so they make a big big noise about how they think someone should be Indianized or localized and sometimes they succeed in making a change. It’s stupid. I liked Bombay just fine. I also liked Madras not Chennai and Calcutta not Kolkata. Dumb.
Generally, we’re all in shock and it is a bit like our own 9/11.
They also changed Madras and Calcutta?????
That is stupid.
I thought Bombay, Madras and Calcutta were Indian names.
But what do I know, they make me think of India.
I don’t like the new names, either.
And they never even think of the huge cost of changing the names for no damn reason. Oh, I forgot one more. Bangalore is actually now Bangluru — though I may have got the spelling wrong. I kind of don’t care enough to go check.
And Bangalore???!!!!
This is madness.
I had heard somewhere the spellings are now closer to the Hindi pronounciation and “de-Britainized”? Would you as a native speaker not think this had done any service to Indian national feelings?
Well the costs must be immense, it would have to effect a hell of a confidence boost I guess to be worth it I guess! And is Bollywood now Mullywood?
Mala, I’ve been hoping you’ll post updates…. The news we’re getting here is very vague, and the news updates come unevenly.
Really? Lorrie was telling me that she was watching it all on Fox News, which was airing one of our channels — NDTV.
It’s finally over. Some terrorists killed, some escaped, one arrested. He’s just a brainwashed (but highly trained( kid who says he doesn’t regret it at all and thinks he’s done the right thing. They have killed over 200 people — exact toll not known yet. They had planned to blow up these hotels, just like they did the Mariot in Paksitan. The terrorists (the kid says there wre 40) are Pakistanis, two Indians, Bangadeshis, Mauritians. But this is not something that has been planned by the government of Pakistan. Their guys are coming here to help investigate it.
The staff on these two hotels have been absolutely amazing. They’ve put their guests lives ahead of their own all through. One young hotel management student escorted guests to a safer room and made sure they were in — but those guys came and they shot him. There are tons of amazing stories.
These terrorists wanted to hit at foreign nationals here. Americans and Britons in particular! They killed a poor little rabbi and his wife. They killed the Israeli parents and grandparents of a two year old baby — whose birthday it was that day.
Yes I heard the story of the 2-year old. It s heart-breaking.
To be honest days like these remind me why I turned into an atheist studying the two religions within my family, Catholicism and Islam, extensively.
If this God existed, and if “He” had any power at all, how could “He” not intervene faced with such barbarians pretending to act in “His” name, be it the “Holy” Inquisition burning “witches” and scientists or today’s barbarian Muslim fundamentalists randomly massacring everybody in their way, let alone dissidents or apostates.
I feel very bad for the infant, and I maybe even feel worse the majority of these guys got killed and will not have to face prison walls in isolation where there is a slight chance the images of dying or wounded ppl might haunt them at least in their dreams.
I also wished for them to rot in hell, but as I said I ve lost faith there is any higher justice at all.
hmmm I did not mean to add depressiveness to shock.. sorry girls..
Well, I think God is one of the most dangerous things that man invented. But that apart, it’s anger time here in India and “Mumbaikars” in particular are livid. “Enough is enough” is the big catchphrase for the past 2 days. The terrorist community must be having a party.
“God is one of the most dangerous things man invented.”
Well said.
What is “Mumbaikar”, people of Mumbai?
Well I can feel them if they are saying “enough is enough”.. reading detailed reports on the slaughter like on yahoo yesterday, with names and lives of the people killed or wounded woven in, I have that feeling and rage too without being close or ever having set a foot on India.
When the Madrid attacks occurred, I felt the same. Maybe because I used to be a “parisienne” at the time and shortly before there had been threats for Paris’ subway too by a Maghrebine group (“land of wine, land of pork” will be hit if France does not revert to Islam – and rmmbr France was a fervent opposer of the war in Iraq, so to me it is obvious the Jihadis will never stop, no matter what national politics are, and always find “reasons”).