Oh, and let’s not forget the events of the preceding politics. The rath yatra spawned a wrath yatra much more real than a Toyota tricked out as an epic chariot. Think about it. There is grisly irony in the destiny of two very different but equally symbolic domes. Those of the Babri mosque could not withstand their storming by our own kar sewaks? on December 6, 1992; that of the Taj Mahal Hotel stood defiant despite the grenades of the Pakistani terrorists on November 26, 2008.

Mumbai’s serial dates with terror had deluded us into believing that we had seen it all. But the latest attacks were different. Very different. This time, it was not just a momentary detonation followed by the citizenry rushing to pick up the pieces, theirs and those of perfect strangers. It was a sustained siege, and it went on for three days. Worse, we, the people, were denied our catharsis of doing something about it. For, apart from the spurt of events at CST and the Metro junction, the surreal drama was played out behind forbidding walls. We were merely petrified, hands-tied bystanders dependent entirely on terror’s breathless intermediary, the television screen.
The three-pronged attacks were notably, numbingly different in their targets as well. Yes, ordinary commuters and bystanders were shot and injured, as they always have been, when Mohammed Ajmal Kasab and his two killing-machine cronies spewed out catastrophe as they swaggered out of the landmark terminus. But the riveting images were those of the city’s rich and powerful being beggared and humbled by four no-good kids from Pakistani gulleys who had awesomely metamorphosed into the omnipotent avatar of terror.

Yes, November 26 was Page Three, dragging this hedonistic domain into depths which were the total antithesis of all its arrogant presumptions. Yet it is unfair to say that the media effluence went on for so long after those three days of jagged fear because, this time, the shimmerati were no longer immune in their lycra cocoons; they were dragged right out there staring into the un-photoshopped face of terror. In the grenades’ debris they had been equal made with every Mumbaikar whose future had been fractured by the 31 major bombs which had exploded across the city from Nariman Point to Virar since that surreal afternoon of March 1993.
Forget the vacuous comments of the pathetic few posing in full make-up to moan about the temporary loss of Shamiana Nights. Over these last 15 years, the loftiest and the lowliest have had to learn that Bombay/Mumbai would never be the same again; each explosive reminder embedded the cruel shrapnel of this altered reality deeper into our collective brain. It is patently unfair to say that the penthouse set remained in their sybaritic towers and did not give their money, minds and special clout to try to prevent a next-time. The movers and shakers have always tried to move and shake our political minders out of their apathy. If, soon after each tragedy it was back to work and play as usual, this was the case for all Mumbai. For that too is the reality of this eat-lunch-or be-lunch city.

Which brings me to the ‘spirit’ of Mumbai, that incredible creature which has been so savaged after not just these attacks, not just after the 2006 blasts on the commuter? trains, but also after the deluge of 2005 for which only our own blind greed was to blame. Almost all Mumbai was held hostage for three days then because of the corruption, apathy and incompetence of Mantralaya and the Municipal Corporation which had allowed not just drains but an entire river to be choked as rampant construction ravaged environmental essentials.
Spirited Mumbai has been projected as Sucker Mumbai, given such a raw deal from the authorities because its citizens have simply found their own solutions. That’s absurd. We shouldn’t lose our USP. Let Mumbai’s spirit change along with the city. Let it force Mumbaikars to demand their rights to security – and less brutalising daily commutes. But no one’s even going to believe us if we try to project sassy, savvy Mumbai as some doormat martyr quietly being crucified. Helloh! Our reputation has been built on driving nails into others.
Let this changed spirit insist on our getting as much as we give. Let us extract our dues from our political defaulters as relentlessly as we pursue our other debtors. But the people of this dhandho-seeking, deal-making, winner-takes-all-and-loser-never-quits megalopolis should never give up their Do It Yourself advantage. We should never allow this core of Mumbai’s spirit to be blown to bits.

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