I remember taking this picture in the middle of 2004. It was striking, the green and the black, the death and the life. This peculiar looking tree, with its jarring mix of avian foliage and rebellious greens, was outside the Gateway of India, in front of the now sadly (in)famous Taj hotel. There had been bomb blasts at the Gateway, and then, like now, I had been out of the country when tragedy struck, returning only in time to see the fading embers of the aftermath.

I remember looking at the scene and being struck by the promise of what it represented, by what it could be, by what had happened, and what would not happen again. No, lightning would not strike twice in the same place.
I remember receiving a call some days ago from my mother. A message, rather. It said, don’t worry, we’re fine. At once the convoluted pathways of my imagination were activated - what happened? And so the collective experience of our past churned itself into a paranoia of suggestion. Was it a communal riot? Was it a bomb? Was it a car accident? Was it a trip to the hospital or robbery? I’m glad they were fine, but WHY were they fine?
I remember, when I called her back, my mother saying something about firing and guns at Leopold’s and the Taj, and I felt relieved at their safety, but didn’t quite grasp what she was saying. OK, so some people had fired some shots and there were problems, maybe it was the mafia, after all... this was Leo’s and the Taj, what could really happen there? Little did I know that these little convoluted pathways of my demented imagination had so much missing from their map that even in their combined visual hysteria, they could produce nothing even close to the chaos that reality was manifesting all over Bombay.

I remember... well... not very much. Mostly because I spent the next three days atrophied to the computer... fingers stuck to keys, muscles in a never ending twitch of Refresh and Reload, and nerves shot in every direction, begging for more aggravation. At this point, I apologise – somewhat out of embarrassment, somewhat out of trying to maintain whatever dignity has to be maintained in this situation – but I feel like I am unjustified in being upset at the situation because I wasn’t there, because I didn’t lose family in the losses, because I am sitting here halfway across the world and I feel whenever I am sympathising and empathising as a Mumbaikar, that I am somehow ‘excluded’. I hope this is not the case. And if it is, well, there are a lot of us. It is hard being so far away from where your heart is, not to mention when it’s being torn apart and there’s nothing you can do about it.
For the duration of the ‘Siege’, a constellation of satellite Bombaywallahs gradually emerged; transplanted nostalgics from the great city who formed a dependency network, constantly checking the news, chatting with each other, telephoning back and forth and to home, and in some ways, somehow we all became part of it – detached, depressed, stressed, miserable, locked up in our homes and with only each other to rely on, we let the drama take us hostage. I don’t know of another time when I’ve spoken as much with some of the people I’ve spoken to over those four days, but we did, and it just seemed normal.

I remember now, all of a sudden, an odd memory of a school reunion. A bunch of cheeky, jovial guys all hanging about the Gateway, having wandered there after dinner. Sporadically one of us would break off into the Taj to use the best ‘public’ bathroom in the city, the occasionally conscientious one trying to put on a real show when he went in to make it seem like he wasn’t abusing the facilities. We weren’t really, everyone went, and nobody did. That was just the arrangement, and it worked.
I remember it being a real gas that night, sitting around cracking jokes, starting up ridiculous conversations with the ice-creamwallah, and enjoying the old days with the sour but refreshing Apollo Bunder sea air. There are fond memories from there as a kid, being unable to swim and petrified of water, with my dad holding my hand and us jumping from ferry to ferry till we reached the one farthest out that would go on the exhilarating one-hour-and-back boat ride. The sweets and snacks, and horse carts and those innocent wonderings of what those men and women were doing by the sea as my mum tried to cover my eyes and pull me away. I remembered so many good things. And then some.

I remember walking along there with a Korean friend (amongst others) some years ago and some horribly racist remarks that bystanders threw her way. I remember seeing people getting chased and beaten on that stretch. I remember the whores and pimps and drug dealers, and the cops wandering around with their lathis chasing everyone and anyone away. I remember the two Manipuri girls who were attacked at the Gateway, one of them murdered, as people just watched. And I remember, the blast there in 2003. And now this.
Bombay/Mumbai/whatever-you-choose-to-call-it, has always been a case of Jekyll and Hyde, and it always will be. It is the ultimate example of having to take the bad with the good and the good with the bad and making the most of it. But this was something else; this was another monster, a much bigger, viler, more sinister thing that found its way into our story and tried to stop the plot. And Mumbai the Hero and Mumbai the Villain both stopped and stared, shocked, as they found themselves on that all-too-rare patch of common ground.

In all our remembrance, let us not forget that what is most broken in India is the system. Years, no, DECADES, of occasionally conscientious, mostly-apathetic politicians, corruption, negligence, crime, poverty, ignorance, greed, and an emotional polarity that creates and destroys at will. Bombay was attacked because it was vulnerable; it was vulnerable because it was weak; and it was weak because the powers-that-be reduced it to that. Now they are all to0 keen to come up with some sort of drastic counter-attack, feeding off the frenzy of the masses, a pack of filthy opportunists sensing the opportunity of their lifetimes. Somewhere, somehow, I hope that ‘we the people’ realise that the system is so broken, that going and breaking something else isn’t going to fix it.
I remember, lastly, following the incident and tryin g to suppress the nagging question that some don’t want to answer, and which others are ready to answer all-too-eagerly. Response? Some say war, some say attack, some say change, somewhere there is a half-hearted murmur from pacifists. Will attacking Pakistan and killing some of their people really solve anything? Will it soothe the grief and sorrow and suffering that’s drowning a city right now? I’ve always thought that these kinds of terrorists, despite what the TV says, don’t really have a motive for inflicting terror, other than trying to elicit more terror. If they attack, and nobody responds in kind, then they have accomplished nothing.

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