#15: why, and what for

Mumbai was rocked – by bombs on suburban trains that mindlessly killed a few hundred innocent people just going about their daily lives. As if living was not hard enough already ....

It brings back horrific memories. I grew up in Delhi where, at the height of Punjab insurgency, public buses were the soft targets. Then came Mumbai in March, 1993. One late afternoon, 13 bomb blasts ripped across India's financial capital. The targets were the stock exchange, the main rail station, the passport office, the airport, busy market-places, hotels. It prematurely ended the lives of locals, tourists, and of kids just walking back after school. All blown to pieces for nothing they did or did not do. Our office was just a few blocks away from two of the sites.

Even months later the city was still in a stupor – unable to fathom, or explain the why, and what for. So many years have passed since then. But methods or mindsets of such killers haven't changed. Do they ever see themselves in the mirror? Do they ever look back and try to make sense of it? Do they ever ask what have they achieved from those deaths? Is the truth too uncomfortable to bear? Or am I expecting a rational behaviour which is a misplaced assumption to begin with?

The next day: It's the perfect civic response .... not with guns or a witch-hunt, but with defiance. The authorities cleared up the wreckage overnight despite pouring monsoon rains, the commuters flocked back to the same network in the morning, and the stock-market climbed higher!! All of it without much fanfare - as if tubthumping .... "I get knocked down, but I get up again; You're never going to keep me down". Mumbai – I am so proud of you.