The Mumbai Terror Attacks: A Year Later

[Chai the next morning in the Colaba District]

I look at India a year later and am not surprised by reports that nothing has changed. Metal detectors at the train station are unplugged and unmanned. If the same terrorist group wanted to attack Mumbai, it could very easily. Indian's would grow angry again and demand that their leader's take recourse on Pakistan....drawing both nations (whose barrels are loaded with Uranium) to point guns at one another over something that although very tragic, is in less important when compared to their real problems.


[Cafe Leopold after it was attacked]

Case in point, around 170 people were murdered in Mumbai on November 29th. The city was terrorized and for that, Indians have every right to be angry. However, on that same day in Mumbai, 630 children died at birth and 125 kids died from diarrhea. Scores of Mumbaikar lived in poverty, as they still do now. We pulled into Mumbai just after the attacks. As our train approached the city, the tracks were lined with shanty town settlements of families living in trash, their children playing on the rails only feet from the barreling engine. These settlements line the tracks for miles before reaching the station. Think of driving into Dallas or LA or Chicago but trade track housing for shantys.


[Mumbai's main train station after attack]

I can't help but feel that sometimes India has a billion person identity crisis. How can the ruling class justifiably worry about a real threat from Pakistan instead of working to improve the average Indian's quality of life. There are over 100,000 homeless in Mumbai alone. This figure does not take into account people living in corrugated 'shanty' housing. I fear that the population values gestures and reputation above the wellness of its people. India is on the rise, but from a platform so deep in the ground that it will take generations until the average person sees the light of day. India's Prime Minister Singh enjoyed the company of the Obama's at a white house state dinner last week. In the mean time, the average citizen of Mumbai lives not unlike the children of "Slumdog Millionaire". In retrospect, my empathy for India loses out to the frustration of how truly bad off the country is day to day. Murder on the street is terrible and for me, unimaginable. But any traveler will witness unreined poverty that is not a single incident, but a daily reality. I personally love traveling in India, but can't help but feel that for India, its time for tough love.


[Front door of Cafe Leopold at night]