Mumbaikar now

I'm writing for my blog again, because I need an outlet. I've watched transfixed from 12 am on the 26th. I became a Mumbaikar, a Bombayite as much as any Indian. I watched horrified as terrorists, roughly my age went through the city at will, killing, firing at innocent people with a smile on their faces. Now, I am a realist, and so I didn't expect them to be crying their eyes out on the suicide mission, but watching it for real, up close through the camera was a different experience, one that I hope is never repeated, not in Bombay, not in India, not anywhere in the world.

These were the words I wrote a day after the madness was stopped in Mumbai. I never posted this because I couldn't finish it off convincingly and I didn't feel right posting this then. A year has passed now and I think these words, to a very small extent, show honestly how I felt then, better than what I can express now, sleepless and glued to the TV, scared, helpless and impotent. This is not how it's supposed to happen, you can't just walk into my country, my home, my India and just kill us, kill me, rendering our security forces helpless and running around. Those 70-odd hours shattered our illusions of security so so much more than all the countless bomb blasts put together. This wasn't supposed to happen, you can't just do that, you cannot rape all of us, my country. Because that's what we were that night. Raped.

It sounds harsh and dramatic, but it's true. I can't find any other word that is as apt. We were raped, forced and played with, our outrage and all our efforts, our strength, our pride, all amounting to absolutely nothing. And then to endure the posturing, the political milking of the situation, the fake grief in some places. But all of that seems so much better than the indifference and the blase approach so many of us have adopted now, probably even me. But there is a residue left, which refuses to be washed off after a year, I can feel it, and I'm morbidly pleased about it. The pain and the shock is numbed, but not forgotten. And that gives me a little hope, because if I feel it, others must to. And I think I observed it through the day today on the news. Beyond the jingoism and pretentions, there was determination, grit and honest resolve, and the same residue that I feel.

And for the warmongers - Grow up. Giving Kasab a fair trial is what separates us from them. We cannot hang him or lynch him on the streets, because frankly that's not how civilised democracies and civilised people do things. We keep a distance between us and them by our actions and in a way they win if they succeed in dragging us down even a bit to their level. We cannot let that happen. As convenient as saying that we should declare a war against Pakistan is, it's neither advisable nor justified.

It's been a year. A year when we haven't had a major terrorist attack. We've pumped money into security, and we seem to have found a competent Home Minister. And maybe it's just dumb luck, or whatever, but not tuning in to see people dying left, right, centre, is a change I think I can happily get used to.