A Tribute

The year was 2006. I had been in Mumbai for just one week. College had just begun. I was still trying to absorb the niceties and the vagaries that this new city was throwing at me. The pace at which the city ran was the most striking feature as I had been used to a relatively calm and ‘at my own pace’ life, coming from cities like Jamshedpur and Bangalore.

And then came 7th July. I was out hunting for a paying guest accommodation that evening. As I was sitting in Bus No. 131, with the broker, suddenly there was a cacophony of ringtones in the bus. Anxious looks dawned on everyone’s faces as they spoke into their phones. And so rang my phone. It was mom’s call. She sounded rather tensed, not that it wasn’t her normal pitch, but there was something different in her voice this time.

“Are you in the local train?” she asked. “No”, I replied. “Get back to the hotel. There has been a serial blast on the trains”, she cried out. So that was why the phones were ringing.

Looking out of the bus window, I could see that the already fast-paced city had broken into a run.

I switched on the television when I got back to my room. It was then that the magnitude of the tragedy dawned upon me. The 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings were a series of seven bomb blasts that took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai. 209 people lost their lives and over 700 were injured in the attacks.

I know that there is no way in which I can begin to understand the suffering of those who lost their loved one’s in this tragedy and therefore I offer my words as a sincere feeling of sharing the sorrow.

I write this, however, for another reason.

This is a tribute to the human spirit that this city is famous for. The spirit that was on show a year before during the monsoon floods on 26th July, 2005. News clipping showed people opening their doors to strangers offering them shelter, others offering biscuits and water to those stranded on the roads. That night the entire city had become one big Family.

The morning after the blast, it wasn’t like Mumbaikars sat in their homes, afraid to go out to their jobs, to their schools, afraid to resume normal life. The city put on a great show of unity and solidarity when the people of this city got out of their homes the next day to resume their daily lives with an increased show of vigour and self-belief. They travelled on the very local trains that been ripped apart in the blasts not less that twenty four hours earlier.

This was a message. A message to the world. A message that we shall not be shaken, we shall not be driven scared into our homes, we shall not cower down to such acts of intimidation and we shall not let anything affects our lives.

It’s been more than two years now that I have lived in Mumbai. Honestly, there is not much that I like with the city. Its dirty, its fast and the climate is horrible. But this city has that spirit, that charm, that attracts millions and I am one of them.

I offer this as a salute to the spirit of Mumbaikars.
As a salute to Mumbai.....aamchi Mumbai!!!!
P.S.: I apologise for posting this after July 11th.