On the terror attack that shook Mumbai on 26/11/08

It is going to be difficult to forget that fateful evening. Though we are miles away in Gurgaon, some of our closest family members are in Mumbai and were there on the night of 26-Nov-2008. I remember there was an important cricket match that day and we almost switched off our T.V once that got over, only to switch it back on after a phone call from my hubby's brother. "Did you watch the T.V?", he asked, "there's been some firing at VT Station & Taj hotel". We quickly surfed the channels and found to our utter shock the extent of the attack and fearingly so, the audacity. 10 terrorists had crossed the High Seas under the noses of our Coastal security, taken 3 v.significant places hostage and were wreaking havoc with their huge arms & ammunition supply, killing people, killing police, and just creating mindless bloodshed. The Taj, Oberoi & Trident hotels, C.S.T station and a private house cum religious hub of Israeli Jews. There was the Mumbai police, NSG Commandoes and the Navy special teams combating these fanatics and the episode finally ended with over 250 killed and scores injured. All our near and dear ones are safe but the attack has shaken me too much. Mumbai has often fallen victim to such villains in the past, maybe because it the one of the most succesful cities of the country,  most flamboyant, most colorful and most famous. Many a time we have had bomb blasts and several hundred victims but this time somehow it is more spine chilling.

This time its been even bolder, even faster and even more well planned and so fine an execution that you can't help shudder in awe. But enough of 'Bharat ke dil pe Hamla' and enough of testing the 'Mumbai spirit', don't you think? Of course we shall bounce back, of course we shall punish the villains of this particular episode but what of the next time and the next?! High time for the leaders to stop talking and DO something. Heaven knows what I will fling at the TV the next time I see our ex Hon. HM or any other politician come in their impeccable & unruffled attire and mouth empty rhetoric..with due respect to their followers webwide fans in the group, don't most of them remind you of some foolishly regressive & adamantly dumb boss/colleague/prof?! There are far too many like them around to miss the prototype!

People are praying for strength to tide over these times, I think we should pray for guts to combat these times head-on and take it to victory. Enough of vote bank politics, enough of appeasing this class and that community, enough of so-called 'human rights advocates' popping up whenever we have someone solid apprehended - boss, even the ones being massacred is humans, be it innocent victims or the police, how about treating THEM as one? Enough of "tehkikaat jaari hai, hum apni karyawaahi kar rahe hain, aap jald hi parinaam dekhenge"..KAB dekhenge? America had one 9/11 and look at the way they answered back. God knows how many more such 9/11s we need to move our Govt. to absolute, unflinching, indiscriminate action against the terrorists(though I am not known as an advocate of violence as such, this is a matter of OUR Human Rights after all!). 

This time its too close home for me. Just half a km away was where the villains disembarked,across a narrow sea looms the burning Oberoi, the sky behind greyed with the flames of the Taj, the way to work strewn with signs of the violence, the lively station waiting room, our halting place many a time all through my childhood, which must have been filled with so many people with dreams of going home, perhaps to enjoy a vacation, now a bloodbathed, empty hall...all this ....its too close for me to not just be moved but downright scared. God bless us all! Take care...