Bombay burning

[img_assist|fid=829|thumb=1|alt=Bombay blasts|caption=Image from BBC]
I don't remember ever enjoying the train rides in Mumbai's local trains. They were bipolar extremes maquerading as public transport. You were squished by humanity from all sides, and hence you floated into and out of the trains, a human buoy. Your nose was assaulted by the unholy mix of sweat and Cuticura powder and smelly shoes. But when you went back to your small town life, you complained to anyone who would listen how you never had to wait more than two minutes for a missed train in Bombay.

The glamorous dream Bombay of my childhood has transformed into the humid, horrific Mumbai of my adult life. It's my port of entry each time I return to India. There is no easy way to write about the Mumbai blasts. When I read the casualty numbers this morning, they were put at about 30. It slowly climbed up to 190. I was filled with almost a sense of thankfulness that the toll was still a fathomable number. I have to be honest here. I feel bad about feeling this way, and it bothers me that the world might look at these numbers and think along the same lines.

The numbers are comparable to the toll in the Madrid blasts. They're about a tenth of 9/11's casualties, and almost nothing compared to 2004's Boxing Day tsunami. In a poor Third World country with one billion people, of what significance is 190?

To Mumbaikars, the seven blasts of 11/7 might represent a certain degree of discomfort in the immediate future - loss of revenue, loss of reliable transportation. According to the BBC, the city's trains services about 6 million people a day. Any disruption is bound to hurt the city's economy.

To the various Indian government agencies managing the aftermath, those 190 are worth INR 100,000 each (roughly USD 2222). That is the amount promised to the next of kin of deceased persons. An injured person is worth half that amount. Desperate families might clamor for more, and then one by one, quietly accept the amounts. People will debate the worth of such compensation, and this day and these numbers too will be forgotten, only to be trotted out the next time something like this happens.

To India's religious fundamentalists, these deaths might represent 190 individual slights that need to redressal. These might just be the acts that spur another Godhra. Or maybe India's secular tradition will withstand these thousand small cuts, as Times of India reports. Only time will tell.

Image from BBC

Contributing Editor Priya Ramachandran also blogs at Words on Water

Technorati Tags: Mumbai | Bombay | blasts | train blasts | India

Submitted by DesiGal (view blog

) on Wed, 07/12/2006 - 00:11

Posted In

Southeast Asia

Comments (3)

Tell a Friend

Comments

What does the loss of 190 Mumbaikers teach?

Dina, these links are excellent, thanks. After I read your thoughts, I found this purported letter from a 'friend of an Indian friend,' published by Andrew Sullivan. You both put the number into perspective -- albeit slightly different ones. Where you question what kind of impact these terrorist attacks can possibly have in Mumbai, Sullivan's Mumbaiker mocks the bombers:

Not-so-Dear Terrorist,

Even if you are not reading this we don't care. Time and again you tried to disturb us and disrupt our life - killing innocent civilians by planting bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony but every time you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If you wanted to give us a shock then we are sorry to say that you failed miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewhere, not here....

Sullivan gives Mumbaikers credit for "stoicism." I see a difference between that heroic word, that manly compliment of stiff-upper-lippedness -- and resolve. The resolve to help, to pick up the pieces (horrible metaphor but apt), to donate the blood and to keep on moving. I have never read -- nor properly researched -- data on the chilling effect that a terrorist attack can have on a community or a culture. So I don't have any facts on how the loss of 190 lives will affect or alter everyday life in the megalopolis of Mumbai for residents who do not know nor personally mourn these 190+ people. But a half-world away, in my survey of admittedly few Web sites, that's part of what I'm seeing.

Because resolve allows for a human side of crisis that "stoicism" does not. And my surfing led me to what the past five years of natural and man-made disaster (Katrina-Pakistan Earthquake-9/11-Madrid-Bali) have taught Web users to expect: Immediate online help via good Samaritans who drop everything to assist. Via Conversations with Dina I found links to the Mumbai Help Blog and its 405 comments from family members abroad, who couldn't reach home due the influx of cellular traffic to the area, who worked with remote strangers they may never meet to contact fathers, sisters, family, friends. Dina also linked The Mumbai Help Wiki.

So while I lack your groundedness in my own initial response -- these attacks both frighten and enrage me -- I always feel my resolve return when I see this kind of grassroots help.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Submitted by Lisa Stone on Wed, 07/12/2006 - 22:10

From what I've been reading

From what I've been reading on Sepia and other places, this letter is a sort of chain letter that's been doing the rounds. While I'm a bit wary of any mails which exhort you to pass them on to x number of your friends, I appreciate and agree with the sentiments in this particular one.

It chokes me up to read how slum dwellers, who we assume have almost nothing material to give, buy water and food for their fellow afflicted from their meager daily earnings. Or let stranded citizens spend a night in their own cramped kholis.

Thanks for adding those links. All very useful ones.

Priya Ramachandran
Blogher Contributing Editor - South East Asia
Words on Water

Submitted by DesiGal on Thu, 07/13/2006 - 06:13