For the longest time, I have not been able to get myself to blog about the attacks in Mumbai. Mumbai is my adopted home and my favourite city in the world, a city which doesn't care if you are cosmopolitan or gawaar, rich or poor, it will still show you a great time.
I will never forget the 4 years I spent in the city : IIT and ALL that went with that - hiking with the Ruggers, chilling with ee2kiitb, Mood Indigo (our college fest), the Performance Arts Festivals, working late nights building our Electronics Design Projects, the cool gang and InsIghT (the campus newspaper), the hidden gems like Maddu Mess which give Mumbai its character, travelling by local trains, sneaking into the legendary restrooms at the Taj, the snootiness of Prithvi Theatre, the dosas of the udipi restaurants in Matunga, the 16-hour daroo parties, holi and bhaang Mumbai-ishtyle, hanging out for hours at Pizza Hut or Mcdonald's, the house parties at friends' places, the empty roads at night perfect for biking, rock concerts with crazy head-banging, all-night scrabble with Renta, MVN or Pramit, the midnight buffets at the five stars, the trekking in the Sahyadris, Chaat and waves at Juhu beach at night, college fests and all that go with them (Sophia's.. sigh!!), watching Ducatis drive around the Queen's Necklace at night, chicken kebabs in the car at 3 am at Bade Miya's, konkani fish at Mahesh Lunch home, cocktails at Europa, going to geeky science lectures at TIFR, movies in south Bombay, shopping for used books at Flora fountain, Bhavya's yummy chocolate cakes, free tickets via Mood Indigo to party at Fire and Ice, the scrabble house parties with amazing company, the "oh-so-British" pubs like Mondy's and most importantly the amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing people.
......... and I still couldn't get myself to say something about what happened in this very same city as I was scared that I would not do justice to how it was that I felt. I now realize that whatever I will say will be inadequate, but I do know that it will be cathartic.
My brother was in Mumbai when the attacks started. He works at a big consultancy firm in Nariman Point bang next to the centre of the mayhem. When I heard about what was happening, the first thing I did was call him. I got through to him and he told me about how he had left work early that day as he had wanted to see the India-England cricket match. Over the next few hours and days, he told me that he had colleagues who were at the Oberoi who had to hide with the lights off for 4 hours. That friends of a friend were shot dead on the spot at Leopold's Cafe - the restaurant where it all began. The restaurant which will always be special to me - as it was the restaurant where I first tasted steak.
When I got off the phone, I was overjoyed that he was okay and that everyone we knew was okay. I felt the guilt I always feel when I have these thoughts - the realization that when it comes down to it, the only people that I REALLY care about are my friends and family. But then I shoved them aside as they were too uncomfortable - like I always do. I talked to my mom and dad, about what was happening in Mumbai. And when we were talking, we realized that as brave a front as my brother was putting on for the world, those of us who knew him knew that my brother was scared. I put down the phone and I realized that, for the first time, I was really scared.
The bomb blasts never REALLY used to make an impact on me. It had become a routine.
Someone at work tells me frantically about the bomb blasts. I try and call India. I don't get through. I try and call again and again until I get through to someone. I find out from them that everyone I know is okay. I feel guilty that I am feeling good that my family is okay when other peoples' families aren't. I feel the guilt that I am in the States and doing nothing for the country that I love. I am then depressed for 2 days which I spend trying to avoid the topic and deleting all the rants which my friends send. I then spend 2 days angry that the Indian government is ineffective, that all of us Indians are resigned and cynical, that the terrorists are sub-human. Then I feel happy when things go back to normal back in the targeted area and everyone goes back to work, because we "showed them that they couldn't stomp our spirit". Then I feel angry because we all pretend like everything is okay when it clearly isn't. I spend a week when my anger slowly fades away. And then I forget that the bomb blasts ever happened ......... until the next bomb blast happens and the cycle repeats itself.
This time was different. It wasn't over with that one phone call. I stopped going online because I was just too scared to follow the news. I would call my brother every 12 hours and pretend to be happy and cheerful while deep inside I was just petrified. I doubled down on my GMAT preparation as that allowed me to block everything else out and focus on something which was truly and utterly irrelevant. I tried everything I could to force myself not to think about what was happening..... what had happened. I tried and tried to wrap myself in a cocoon, until a good friend Rohit came over to my place and we started talking about Mumbai.
Rohit and I are very close and so there is little room for political correctness in our conversations. We talked about the bare facts and very soon we started talking about what we (India) should do about the situation. Rohit was squarely in the camp that India has been a soft state for too long and it was about time that we did something about what was happening. He believed that we should start rounding up suspects without being hampered by "human rights issues", question them aggressively, follow-through on leads until we find those responsible and be severe in their sentencing. In his words, "If that means we need to create a Guantanomo, then that is what we should be doing."
I too was convinced that something really dramatic needed to be done, but I was of the opinion that we needed to be really surgical about our actions to make any sustainable difference. By playing the Texas cowboy, I was convinced that we would only make the situation worse. If the United States, which is multiple times more powerful militarily than India is, cannot make a solution by force work, our efforts were sure to be futile. I argued that, additionally by playing by the terrorists' terms, we would only make it easier for them to paint us as the enemy and recruit more people to their cause. That by killing the leaders, we would just create the ten new leaders who would take over. That we would just repeat the lessons of history - of Al Qaeda or Palestine or the LTTE.
We both did our share of ranting, but at some point we both decided to start talking more pragmatically about what actually could be done. I agreed with him that the ability to be surgical did not exist in our defence systems. I agreed that even if the young, ultra-trained, ultra-smart professionals of modern India wanted to contribute to defence there seemed to be no mechanism for them to do so. He agreed with me that 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' would not make any sustainable difference to this world.
But, then Ro asked me this one question - "If it was up to you, what would you do?"
For those of you who know me, I rarely am speechless - I often talk rubbish, but I rarely do not talk. I waited for 30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes to think of something. What would Karthik Ramkumar do if he was Prime Minister of India? My brain was rushing through multiple ideas all of which I firmly believed wouldn't work. And try as I might, I could come up with nothing that I believed had the slightest chance of working. And for the first time in my life, I actually felt hopeless.
Two days later, I was meeting a colleague Anish who also studied in Mumbai and loves the city as much as I do. We are both talkative people by nature, but when we started talking about the blasts, it was just so hard to say anything. After a long silence, peppered with sighs, Anish said something which really warmed my heart - "The next time I go to Mumbai, I will make sure that I go to the Leopold's and have a beer there". I wish I could stop on that positive note, but it would trivialize what actually happened.
I firmly believe that there will always be something missing in anything I say. No matter how eloquent I get, my words will always ring hollow because I was one of the lucky ones. One of those whose family and friends got out safe. Intellectually, I went through a lot of strife, but in the real world, nothing happened. My life didn't change one bit. In the last week or so since this whole episode began, me and Disha had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, had dinner with some cousins, wrote our GMATs, invited some friends over for dinner, created our wedding invitation, danced some salsa, did more gymming than we normally do, talked much more to our family (and especially Krishna) than we normally do, did some gift shopping for the holiday season and did 5 days of work. Essentially, we had a blast.
But unfortunately, the world isn't that simple. Not everyone gets so lucky. There are lives across the world which have been devastated by the events of last weekend. All we can do is commit to doing all that we possibly can to be there for those among us who have not been as lucky as we have. Click on the link below to read from someone whose life has been irreversibly changed and the commitment he has made to the world. I thank Disha for sending me this last week, because when I read his words, I started to get back my hope.
http://inhome.rediff.com/movies/2008/dec/03aashish-chowdhry-is-very-angry.htmI know that words are just not enough, but for now that is all that I have.
