India Shining!

Having returned from KSA since over three weeks, my career path is in a limbo, thanks to a technical hitch with my licensing process with the UK's General Medical Council (the GMC). I am also pursuing other tracks in case the UK licensing process does not go through. And that, friends, is the first time I have disclosed my plans for the coming months. I am sitting here before my old laptop (an Acer Aspire) that I had purchased in November 2011, a week before I went to KSA for the first time. Two and a half years later, I had purchased a newer, Windows 8 touch-screen laptop - a Dell Inspiron - but in the last week, its monitor has died off and I have had to give it to a service center to repair it. So, as I said, here I am, with my Acer on a stable, Windows 7 OS, working again without a touch interface, doing my thing.

I am also just through with the following tasks:

1. I renewed my passport. 

Strictly speaking, my passport wasn't due for a renewal until the spring of next year, but I went to an agent who booked my appointment online with the PSK (Passport Seva Kendra) at  Lower Parel inside the Kamala Mills compound. On the appointed day, I was expecting a raggedy office with long tireless queues, absent workers from sweaty desks, and the typical busy milieu we have come to expect in governmental offices. Imagine my pleasant surprise when the PSK turned out to be a well-appointed air-conditioned suite of offices on the ground floor of the rear-most building. The queues were orderly. Although there was a rigmarole of forming one queue, submitting your documents there, then going on to another queue for biometrics, then a third queue for submission of your original documents for instant verification and then, a final one where they bid farewell to you and hand you a paper which you exchange for a receipt at the exit counter (the fifth queue - albeit a very small one). There was a snack counter, clean toilets, plenty of metal seats, and a generally friendly atmosphere that I thought was pretty nifty. As soon as I left the office, I received my first SMS that my passport printing had begun! 

Six days later and after a regular receipt of SMSs, I received my new passport at my doorstep. 

2. I travelled by the Metro rail from Andheri station to the Airport road station and back. 

I had gone to my relative's residence to condole the death of my aunty Zehrafaiji, who passed away on the 1st of September (just a few days before I came back from KSA). It was a Sunday morning when I went. The local train that took me from Dockyard road to Bandra (harbour line) and from Bandra to Andheri (Western line) was the usual crowded mess that Mumbai's local railways are known for. The Metro railways were something else entirely! Clean, largely airy platforms, automated kiosks for entering and leaving the concourse, food courts, and superbly air-conditioned trains made the small trip really memorable! The tickets are pricey, but the price is well worth it, as you are in a world-class railway with passengers not unlike you, and not a nameless, sweaty, smelly crowd that you are yourself a part of in the local network. 

All in all, a great experience.

3. I visited the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital.

 Of course, I knew that this is a hi-tech, state of the art hospital in the western suburb of Andheri. However, I was not prepared for the level of security there. In my life of over 55 years, this was the first time I saw a queue for visitors! They were aligned perfectly, moving peacefully as they approached the metal detector gate and the frisking security-men. Water bottles and food were meticulously looked for and removed from the possession of unsuspecting visitors. As I had no bags, I was allowed to go in easily. The ICU where my friend was admitted for a post-op observation is on the third floor of the huge monolithic building. Entry to this floor is blocked for visitors. You can bypass this by getting off on the second floor and using the stairs to reach the third floor. My friend's wife received me there, and guided me to the ICU door, where a security man gave me a tag for the bed my friend was on and allowed me to go in and meet my friend. The ICU was spacious, and there was a quietly efficient staff performing their duties as I approached my friend's cubicle, which was at the far end on the opposite side. All the equipment was working fine. A nurse came in a few minutes into my visit, checked all the inputs and outputs, sat on a custom chair-table and jotted down her findings. After some time, I left, and went down to the lobby. They have a complete food court with all the major brands of food chains (like McD, CCD, Subway, etc.), a book shop (Crossword), a chaat shop (with sev-puri, etc.), a beauty salon, a pharmacy and a provisionist/ The admissions area, the discharge area, and the information and reception area were all clearly demarcated and segregated. There was a busy hum in the entire lobby, with over a 100 people there. There were clean wash-rooms (a bit out of the center, though), and two banks of elevators - one for visitors to the various diagnostic and day-care service areas, and the other, for inpatient floors. 

I must say the hospital ended up impressing me thoroughly. 

4. I visited my newest adoptee at Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar (GTBN).

Today afternoon, I went to GTBN to the office of World Vision India to meet with Yogesh Kadu, my newest adoptee. This boy, all of 14, is a slight, shy and intelligent boy of Maharashtrian parents, and the youngest of three siblings. Both his older siblings are daughters. His father was with him. I had gone and purchased a set of clothes and some chocolates for him yesterday and got the items gift-wrapped, so handing them over to Yogesh in front of the World Vision staff was a great experience. I am adding this experience to this enty in my blog to encourage every reader to do an act of charity - each according to their budget. My aim is to sponsor ten children, and after Yogesh, who is my third adoptee (the others are Sabia from Kolkata and Sakshi from Mumbai), I have just today added funds to adopt Shruti from Gujarat. There is immense sense of fulfillment when you see your adoptees going out into the world and making something of themselves. 

Check out the pics in my post here.

Adopt a child today!

That's it for now. Thank you, as always, for reading.

Five days in Mumbai, and my emotional health improves

After just 5 days in Mumbai, I am feeling like a different person altogether! No longer am I worried about how the long days will pass - there is so much to do and so many things to look after that there is barely any time to write in this blog, let alone do all the online stuff that I used to do when I was in Saudi Arabia.

On Sunday evening, my family and I visited a new eating place called The Village - at the World Trade Center in Cuffe Parade. We ate good food, served in a buffet, but we also enjoyed playing Dandiya, dancing inside a horse costume, and observed a couple of young children break the Dahi Handi ... will post photos soon. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, I must say.

The very next day, Hannah hurt her left knee in a fall while driving home on the scooter. I took her to the ortho surgeon the next morning, and we were told there was a blood collection in her knee joint, and a possible ligament injury which should be ruled out by doing a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Ligaments are fibrous cord-like structures that connect bones to other bones, muscles or other tissues in the body, including skin and deeper structures. 

We went for the MRI the next morning, and the results indicate that the orthopedic surgeon was basically right. Hannah will need to rest for a month before the knee structures return to their previous state! When she spoke to her boss, the latter took it quite good-naturedly ... an attitude I would have found hard to emulate. 

I went for a walk yesterday evening to the Mazgaon Garden. It was something I used to do quite regularly some years ago, but have given up in the past few years even when I am in Mumbai on a vacation. Having said that, I found it enjoyable. Met some friends and renewed contact with them. I was unable to go today, the day I am writing this ... however, I do feel it should be part of a daily routine so as to keep myself fit. Nishrin and Inas do it almost every day.

I went to the passport seva kendra today to start the process of renewing my passport. This is a place located within the Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg ahead of High Street Phoenix. The internal offices are quite spacious, and one has to go through four queues before being issued with a receipt of your successful application. A task that took over 2 hours. After the job was over, I stopped at the nearby "Smash" gaming shamiana, took a look at the different adventure sports like stuff that one can play, then went out to their canteen, where I had a snack and tea. All in all, a nice experience. 

What else? I plan to get myself an international driving license in the coming days; I plan to cook some interesting food for my family; I wish to complete the job hunt for myself and take up a job wherever destiny takes me; I plan to stitch some new clothes for myself; I want to meet my old school friends and GS friends ... if I can; I have other social obligations too. Let us see what things I can, and what I cannot, do. 

Thank you for reading my entry.

News from India

Life is hectic once again, now that I am in Mumbai! After a half-day's rest, recuperating from the difficult journey from KSA to India, I was back on my toes from Monday morning. There is so much to do, and such little time to do it in! I was busy organising my files and receipts on the first morning, then checking all the books and documents that were sent to me by various peoples and organisations by snail mail. I was also busy inviting guests to join me in a small get-together in the coming week. The invitee list kept growing until we had touched 200! The so-called small get-together was no longer as small as I would have liked it to be, and we seemed to be forgetting so many people. By the time I finished inviting everyone by phone, it was past noon.

A visit to my mom was an important part of my agenda and it filled nearly 3 hours. I also had some official things to do, and it was nearly sundown when I reached the end of my to-do list (it was all in my mind). I made a few discoveries that were pleasant and a few that weren't. In the first list would be the fact that both my daughters are now quite independent. When my elder one arrived home, she brought with her several "thingies" for her new iPad Mini. She was so excited with the new pad that I have gifted her on her 24th birthday that she bought a new tempered glass cover, a new plastic cover, and some shiny, blingy stickers to put over her new possession. 

Hannah is busy with preparing for her board exams. She will, on passing this final exam, get her graduation in Bachelor of Management Studies (B. Com.). She is also looking to get recruited by companies, but hasn't found an employment as yet. 

In Mumbai, life is as usual. The last visit I made in February, I was able to travel down the Metro as well as the Eastern Freeway. One of the things I have not done so far is travelling on the other new transport system - the Monorail. 

Mumbai Monorail

Also pending is a visit to the Bandra Worli sea-link. Let me see if that occurs soon during this visit.

Bandra-Worli sea-link by day

Attribution link

That's it for now. Please do return to read my previous posts, and if you think this blog is useful, please sign up for updates by clicking in the appropriate box on the right (Subscribe to this blog link). Thank you.

Reached India ...

The last week has been a bit hectic; there have been a few incidents that I would like to share, a few items of news and some other information. As I told you all in my previous entries, I started my leave within Al Muwayh last week itself; a few days later, I started organising my leave and its later repercussions. I finally completed all such tasks by Monday. On that day, I filled up an online application for a UK visa in preparation for my forthcoming visit to that country to attend a conference on Patient Safety and Quality in London from the 21st to the 24th of April 2015. I took an application appointment for their Jeddah office for the 19th of March. Accordingly, I packed my bags and left for Taif on the 18th. This time, the Ahle Saif Hotel had no rooms, so I took up a room in the hotel right opposite their hotel. It is called the Judur e Masief hotel. The Egyptian manager gave me a nice ground floor room for SR 70 per night. Initially, I did not know whether I would continue to stay in Taif or return to Al Muwayh for a night before going back to Jeddah for my flight to India on Saturday night.

In the event, I never did return to Al Muwayh. The Jeddah trip was a complete waste of time, money and effort. This was simply a center to accept a visa application, not to process or adjudicate on it. Hence, and also because they told me they would need my original passport to send it with my application to Riyadh where the UK embassy was located, I returned empty-handed. And wasted nearly 350 Riyals in the process. Afterwards, I called up the UK Immigration and Visa office (a premium call where you have to subscribe by credit card ... they charge you GBP 1.37 per minute!). They told me that there was no need to complete a business visit visa from the country of one's residence, and one could apply from anywhere else in the world. After this, I went ahead and applied once again, this time choosing Mumbai, India as my base station. And took an appointment for the coming Tuesday. Let us see how this goes ...

This time, I had booked my journey online through www.jetairways.com. They run flights from Jeddah to Mumbai ... however, the planes are not the big-sized ones but the usual Airbuses. Even so, I booked my journey with them. I reached Jeddah airport a bit early at around half past five in the evening for a journey that was still 7 hours away. I spent the next 3 hours going through my luggage and dumping a few old things like unwanted papers, old towels and such to bring the weight of my luggage down to less than 50 kg, of which the allowed luggage in the check-in category was 40 kg, while the cabin luggage allowance was 10 kg including the laptop bag. I exceeded both categories by up to 5 kg or so. The going rate for excess luggage was SR 76 per kg of excess. I pleaded with the check-in staff to forgo any penalties. And I succeeded.

Tragedy struck when information received by the onsite Jet Airways personnel confirmed that our flight would get delayed due to some technical problems.Initially, he led us to believe that the fault may get rectified and the flight might either be delayed by a few minutes to a maximum of 1 hour; an hour later, he had mellowed down and informed us that while the engineers were busy trying to rectify the malfunctioning part (he wouldn't tell us exactly what was the problem or which part had malfunctioned), they might have to wait for a suitable replacement part to arrive from their stock-facility in Doha by their next incoming flight, which was still 4 hours away. 

We resigned to various seats in the waiting areas. We tried to ask them to take us to a hotel, but they said that would be logistically impossible as our delay would not be for more than 5 hours at the most. 
We were waiting patiently for them to serve us dinner which they said they had requested to be sent for all the guests. What did arrive was adequate for the unforeseen emergency that had occurred. Our food packet had a large bread roll, rice, 3 chicken cutlets and a ladle-full of white beans. Adequate for the occasion. They finally boarded us a little before 4:00 a.m. as their local team managed to rectify the problem without awaiting the arrival of the new part from Abu Dhabi. They ran safety checks for quite some time, and once they were satisfied that everything was good, we took off at 5:00 a.m.

They served us breakfast on the flight. The facilities were quite mediocre, but the flight was event-free, barring some small instances of turbulence from the outside air. We touched down at Mumbai airport a few minutes before noon. 

They first sent zamzam water bottles and small bags on the luggage carousel. The big bags started arriving at 1:00 p.m., and I reached home at half past two in the afternoon. Thus, I arrived home nearly 21 hours after I first started my journey at the King Abdul Aziz International Airport at Jeddah on the previous evening.

Invited post from a friend Mr. Ali Talib

These are the stories,  I tell my daughter, about my childhood in Bombay.

I am  walking through the heavy rains, with my haversack inside my raincoat, and my gum boots splashing water all around the street. I purposely seek puddles of water and stomp my boots into them. I am walking all by myself, from my school to my house. I have walked this route for the last 5 years, and know the sights and sounds of the streets by heart.

In June, Mumbai (then called Bombay) experiences some of the heaviest rains, and with that, comes the cold which can chill the warm sun-loving citizens of this coastal city.

I  come to Princess Street, navigating through the crowds, and crossing the streets with honking cars, and shouting hand-cart "drivers", I reach the gate to the building where I live, and look at the sandwich vendor who sells vegetable sandwiches for 30 paisa each. He waves to me with a long black thin knife in his hand; he is busy slicing tomatoes and, as I pass by him, I notice a beggar lying next to him, wet, skinny, his ribs showing, and spit drooling from his mouth. He is nearly naked, save for  shorts of some kind that he is wearing, covered with wet newspapers, which are not much to keep him dry or warm. He is shivering in the cold. 

Spread on the pavement around him are a few coins and a tin can filled with water.

I  glance at the beggar and walks past the Farsan Shop (a shop that sells savouries) , and into the entrance of Fida Building, running into the dark narrow corridor and up the stairs, to the third floor where my family and I live.

As I am changing clothes, I tell my grandmother about the beggar lying there, but, although she acknowledges me, she carries on with her daily routine as if she never heard me.

Around 5 pm,  my mother ask me to get 2 vegetable sandwiches. I grab an umbrella and runs down the stairs, excited.

Standing in between the sandwich man and the shivering beggar, I order the sandwiches, and ask for and get the courtesy cucumber-slice with  salt and pepper and a little ketchup spread on it. I mouth it immediately, and I can see the shivering beggar  looking at me. I look back calmly at him, turn around and run back up to my home with the sandwiches, still munching on the freebie in my jaws.

On other days, I see other customers order their sandwiches and eat them on the street,  the beggar staring at them all and beseeching them for some food.

 

Not surprisingly, a Mumbaikar can shamelessly eat food in front of a hungry staring person without feeling any guilt or remorse. City life immunizes them to others' pain, hunger and suffering.

As days progress, the beggar’s health  deteriorates; he is now unable to move, his clothes are spoiled from human wastes, and a bad smell of pus, rotting flesh and urine comes from him. People are complaining, especially the sandwich man, as he is losing business.

He becomes the subject of daily evening talk, when the neighboring aunties meet in the building hallways, just before the evening prayers, looking out for the electric bulb to light up on the door of the neighboring mosque - a signal to inform the faithful to begin praying the Maghrib salat. Everybody wishes for the beggar to just disappear, and are quite irritated that the municipality or the police have not moved him from there. Some are even convinced that the beggar must have paid a bribe to the police to let him stay there.

A few days later, as is my daily evening habit, I stand in our room window, looking out at the street and the people walking there, counting the ghoda gaadis (horse-carts) and the Fiat and Ambassador cars. Then, I  notice a crowd gathered near the sandwich vendor.

Brimming with curiosity, I run down to the street, jumping 4-5 stairs at one time, to see what had happened.

The  beggar's body is covered with a clean white sheet of cloth, and spread on this  sheet are lots of Rupees,  five-rupee  and ten-rupee notes. I have never seen a beggar with so much money. I am busy calculating the vegetable sandwiches he could be buying with that money.

Then I realize that he is dead.

I was never a stranger to death. I had seen many in my 10 years of life. We were never shielded from death -  every day from my window, I would join my parents or grandparent to see a dead man being carried by his family and friends on the street - sometimes for burial, and sometimes for cremation, depending on their religion. 

The crowd grew all around him. I squeezed my way right up to the front, and was standing there among  strangers, listening to their conversations, and watching their reactions.

The people were talking about how sick he had been,  how they wished they or somebody else had taken him to the hospital, about how he came from some remote village to get medical treatment, and why he had selected this very spot to beg, about how they had given him some food or money, and so on. Everyone seemed to recollect having given alms or food to the dead man.

In an hour or so, a municipality hearse came by and picked up the body and the money and carried him away. The local sweeper threw water on the spot and brushed it hard to remove all traces of the beggar. The crowds came back to buy their evening sandwiches.

Everybody was happy. It was a win-win situation, after all. For one, the beggar was dead and gone, and, for another, they had contributed to his burial or cremation, and that would bring them blessings from the Almighty above.

In the evening, as the building aunties congregated in the verandah, they talked about the poor beggar, and some said that they, too, had given money for his cremation.They all agreed this was something that would bring them "sawaab", or blessings, from Allah.

The  life and death of the beggar did not affect me in anyway beyond this point, and I continued to lead my usual life.

But after 40 years, I still remember it very clearly, and I daresay, the event did change me in some imperceptible way.

The citizens of Mumbai are very kind to the dead,  but treat living souls with contempt.

You may wonder why it is that to contribute to the last rites of a dead person is considered a Sawaab (blessing) in all religions.

 

Comments welcome. You may directly contact Mr. Talib at THIS email ID.

Mumbai at last: 28th February 2013

Over six days have passed since I landed at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai at a few minutes before 8:00 A.M. on Friday 22nd February 2013. This is my third visit to Mumbai since I left to work for the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in November 2011. I have attempted to discuss many facets of my life there in the last 14-15 odd months in this blog.

My first vacation was in May 2012, when I came to Mumbai for about 25 days; during that visit, I also went for an internal holiday to Sikkim and Darjeeling with my family. The second time I came here was in October. My father had just passed away, and I came to Mumbai for about a week to meet my mother and other members of our families to condole my father's death.

This is to be my longest holiday - 35 + days. Also, no long internal holidays are planned this time as Hannah's exams are getting over only a few days before the end of my vacation here. I do plan to meet relatives and friends, of course, and this should take up a fair amount of time.

My first six days have been a bit hectic, as I have been busy running here and there for several domestic matters. I purchased a second-hand Chevrolet Beat as Hannah, my younger daughter, plans to use it to drive herself and/or the family in the days to come.

In other news, I must say that I am surprised that I am actually missing my friends in Saudi Arabia. The first time, I did not, as my ties with them were not as strong at that time. The second time was a very brief visit to meet my family at the time of my father's demise. This time around, there are no hard and fast rules, no serious issues of engagement and I am free to relax and to do what I please in the next month or so that I am going to be here.

After coming to Mumbai, I have begun to go to the Mazgaon Garden for the morning walks. So far, the progress has been fair. My family and I went to see a movie and ate out the same evening at Ling's Pavilion, the restaurant behind the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower near the Gateway of India. The food was delectable, but the Mongolian chicken preparation was really, really HOT. We had to have it between sips of water.  For those not familiar with this Chinese eatery, it has a lovely milieu and interiors, a running stream with large fish in it under one's feet, a multi-level seating arrangement and great food. To reach this place, one has to enter the Cafe Mondegar Lane. The restaurant entrance is tastefully made, and eating within is a pleasure too.

Which movie did we see? Oh yes, we saw the movie Kai Po Che (the guttural cry made by kite enthusiasts in Gujarat when they manage to cut and set free another flyer's kite ... it literally means "Have cut it!"). This movie is adapted from Chetan Bhagat's "The Three Mistakes of My Life". Rating: 4 stars.

I performed Hajj last October, so I am also distributing a "hadiyah" a token gift of dates, zam zam, and a small memento to all my relatives and close friends. In connection with that, I have been busy too, making the parcels and then going to each one's place to hand these over with respect and love. 

Will continue to update my experiences in the days and weeks to come ... 

Monsoon ebbs, heat resumes.

Mumbai is an interesting city with even its climate forming an important aspect of day to day discussions of the Mumbaikar. If you want to learn more about the monsoon that graced the city this year, just go back a few posts on my blog and read all about it. This post, though, is about the heat and sweat that follow on the heels of a refreshing rainy season. Currently, I am reading the book shown alongside. Suketu Mehta is not your average Mumbaikar. He is one of the privileged ones who got to go abroad and stay in the US of A for several years. Educating himself in Mumbai and also abroad, Suketu has retained his ties with his parent city, and, through his infinite patience and sensitivity, has managed to get stories out of the most secretive souls of the city. When he talks about the riots that ravaged Mumbai in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Mosque, he writes about real people who participated in these riots, including people who actually killed fellow-humans in the frenzy of the moment. If you can, you should try and get your hands on this book and read it. Suketu writes charmingly and with wit.

Going back to my favourite topic, the monsoon has almost disappeared, with the city staying dry since almost a week; in its place, the high humidity of over 80% has made comfort non-existent, and people are seen walking down the roads with lassitude and torpor.Even with the A/C on at 25 degrees, the rooms don't feel cool. Outside, it is a torture to walk. One can just about bear the heat if one is astride a two-wheeler or inside an air-conditioned car. The heat has come on almost suddenly over the last few days, and now, everyone is talking about how it is becoming more and more difficult to venture outside the house. The heat also cuts productivity and creativity. This is the main problem with the heat.

For those readers who wish to travel to Mumbai sometime, I strongly recommend the Lonely Planet Mumbai Guide. I have, for my India specific travels, always relied on the India tourist guide of the same publisher, and it has never failed me once. I used it to travel to Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore/Mysore/Ooty, Chennai/Mamalapuram/Kodaikanal, Jammu and Kashmir, and even smaller places like Mahableshwar. It is one of the best resources for travel. Of course, now, with the internet making many more sources available, people are getting their info online, and even using these resources to print out illegally downloaded guides, such as the Egypt guide I downloaded a few months ago (see my Egypt tour post in an earlier blog here). Despite this, however, the LP guides are really satisfying and entertaining.

Ravi, who has commented on this entry, has suggested that I read the book shown  alongside ...

Rains in Mumbai this year

It has been an eye-opener. This year, it poured torrentially in Mumbai. It took just a month for half of the entire season's average rainfall to fall upon the city. By now, we have had more rainfall than what we have had in the last over 35 years! By the end of August, all the seven lakes that supply water to this metropolis were full to the brim, or at least over the levels reached in the past several years. The water cuts imposed on the city last year were removed by the civic committees that look at the problem officially. Everyone seemed to be happy at this decision.

However, there is a flip side to this situation too. The heavy rains caused several accidents: tree branches that fell on unsuspecting citizens and either killing or maiming them, walls that fell on to sleeping dwellers and killing them there and then, landslides at construction sites, flooding, and above all, a very high incidence of malaria, typhoid, jaundice and other tropical diseases that filled up all the  beds in the various public as well as private hospitals. 

As I write this, I am filled with sadness at the various tragic occurrences, but, also, I am happy, for the busy season brought me a lot of professional satisfaction, and money too. I am happier, even, for the fact that no one in my own family - nuclear, joint, or extended, had any of the problems I listed above. For this, I can only thank the merciful and bountiful Allah, who continues to bless us.

It would be interesting to learn from you, dear reader, about your experiences with extremes of climate - whether rains, or heat, or cold. I know from Anna that she had to face extremes of cold where she lives. A comment by you would be welcome if you are reading this, my friend.

The Face of Terror

Starting on the eve of the 26th of November 2008, Mumbai city came face-to-face with stark terror: a group of well-organised terrorists landed at Sassoon Docks and proceeded to different places from where they masterminded attacks that left hundreds dead and many more injured; what I want to say about the actual attacks is already on my other blog in the form of three entries that are here, here and here.

In this entry, I am about to share with you the metaphysical dimension of the attacks: we all saw, over the days that the attacks continued, the aggressive attitude of the terrorists and in contrast, the fear and panic on the faces of the citizens of Mumbai, many of them dying unnecessarily in the random shooting of the terrorists. At the C.S.T. railway station, Ajmal Amir Kasab and his accomplice shot people waiting for their trains so cruelly and randomly that the victims never saw it coming. Here is a photo of the surviving terrorist Kasab. As you can see, he is a fairly handsome young man of about 22-23 years' age. Hailing from Faridkot district of Pakistan, he was one of the ten young men who devastated some of the most cherished buildings of south Mumbai. They - i.e. the terrorists - were clinical and brutal in their demeanour and in their action. Gone was even a shred of conscience as they set about killing people mercilessly - unaware that by killing even one person, they were changing or, dare I say, killing humanity as we understand it. Equipped with AK-47 machine guns, grenades, grenade and bomb launchers, satellite phones, and what not, these ten killers descended upon unsuspecting travellers on the railway station, watchmen, patients and doctors at a nearby public hospital (the Cama and Albless Hospitals), pedestrians, adults, men, women and children on the roads near Cafe Leopold and the Metro Adlabs cinema, guests, staff and security men at the Taj Mahal Palce and Tower Hotel, the Trident Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel, and finally, the residents and others at Nariman House where 6 innocent Jews were killed in cold blood.

In addition to the hundreds of Indians who died, some while eating, others while just going about their way towards home, several tourists from many different countries of the world also died within the hotels that they were staying at or visiting.

Staff of all the hotels died, some entire families, such as that of the General Manager at the Taj Palace - except that the father survived. At the C.S.T. railway station, entire families were killed in the gunfire, which, although it seemed random, was actually precise and targeted to cause the maximum amount of panic and psychological damage.

Through it all, most Mumbaikars stayed away from the roads, for over 2-3 days, watching the "drama" unfold over television, as the armed forces and the NSG began their rescue operations. They would finally emerge victorious after nearly 2 1/2 days, but during those 60 hours, ordinary Mumbaikars lived and died a thousand times: stories of carnage intermingled with tales of heroism and supreme sacrifice as several distinguished city policemen and some NSG guards fell to the bullets of the terrorists. In addition, several less well-known policemen also died. And we, the ordinary citizens, watched wide-eyed, our hearts in our throats, tears in our eyes, and an anger that gradually welled up inside us as we prayed that the aggressors got their comeuppance and were killed.

A terrifying week indeed. Heads rolled in the government - both at the state level and at the center, as chief ministers, home ministers and bureaucrats resigned. Homage was paid to the heroes of the nation and they all received state burials. And we, the common citizens, watched it all from home on the various news channels.

After three to four days, people gradually started going back to work, still depressed, dizzy, worried for their safety, panicking at the slightest rumour, and above all, angry at the inefficiency of the government, the intelligence department, the bureaucracy, the politicians and the armed constabulary.

But that is another story, for some other day.

A Brutal Assault III

Three more days have passed since the paramilitary forces such as the National Security Guards (NSG) finally took control of one structure after the other after a struggle that lasted for nearly 60 hours. The Oberoi and Trident Hotels are not as damaged as the Taj, which took the maximum damage; Nariman Building, which, it turns out, was the command center of the terrorists and the place from where their leader watched TV news and guided his "men" on how to move and where to attack, is almost completely damaged and in danger of falling.

At the end of all this, and the investigations that are going on, the National Home Minister (similar to the Minister of Home Security in the U.S.) has resigned; so has the state-home minister. The state's chief minister has also resigned on the 3rd of December evening. People, however, believe that resignations are nothing but political ploys to defuse the peoples' anger, and as such, serve only as "palliative changes" and not as real change.

News culled from various sources have thrown out many shocking details of the terror attack: the technology used by the terrorists was state of the art, their shooting skills, superb, their strategising, totally geared to cause maximum damage, and their planning, very, very detailed. They had even created their own escape routes, should they succeed in hoodwinking the security forces. They were to return to Karachi in Pakistan - once again, by sea. Their use of advanced AK 47 machine guns, satellite phones, grenade launchers, credit and debit cards from Indian banks, Indian SIM mobile phone cards, motorised rafts, false maritime licences, etc. point to an amazing level of planning, and correspondlingly, an amazing lack of intelligence by Indian authorities. It has become evident that their boat was challenged in the Mumbai waters by the Coast Guard, but they were let off once they showed the licences, which were forged = professionally.

On the eve of the 3rd of December, more than a lakh people, angered at the lack of proper security and the insensitiveness of the politician-class, lit candles and gathered en masse at the Gateway of India, just adjacent to the cordoned-off Taj Mahal Palace and Tower. Some of the men and women were celebrities, and had come to the spot because they felt passionately about the issue, but the vast majority were common Mumbaikars who were there to show the victims' families that they were with them at this hour of personal grief and tragedy; they wanted to display that they were Indians first; they wanted to tell off the politicians and bureaucrats who had failed the nation; and finally, they wanted to unite with each other and rise above the parochialism of caste and class. I was there, too, and felt a sense of terrible loss but also a sense of unity and pride in the spirit of Mumbaikars, who had finally had enough and wanted firm and decisive corrective action by the government.

As I write this on the eve of the fourth, I wish to say that two more bombs have been found, containing the lethal RDX, at two different locations visited by the terrorists on the night of the 26th, on two different days - yesterday and today. These bombs remained unexploded, probably due to some error, or else, they would have caused still more deaths and tragedy.

More than 180 dead ... and the nation continues to mourn. Mumbai is back to normal, but it is not the normal normal that I have seen earlier. People are subdued, they are morose, not joking or enjoying life as usual. The wounds of the dastardly attacks will take a long time to heal, and the scars may never fade from the memory of the present generation of Mumbaikars. Questions still remain to be answered, but that is another story.

A Brutal Assault II

It will be a long time before Mumbaikars will recover, but their hard questions will not stop.

In my earlier article, I had hinted that I would tell you about how exactly the events unfolded in Mumbai as the terrorists went about destroying the secular fabric of an already fragile metropolitan city with bomb blasts, religious rhetoric and possibly the worst Hindu-Muslim riots to ever occur in free India as a part of its shameful but chequered history.

However, I am quite sure almost all readers already know how the events occurred. It all started with an assault at the C.S.T. railway station on the night of 26^th November. Within an hour, it had moved to Cama and Albless Hospital, situated just behind the HQ of the Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika (the Municipal Corporation building); and then, after the three prominent policemen lost their lives – in a small lane just behind the Cama Hospital, the chief of the anti-terrorist squad Hemant Karkare, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and ACP Ashok Kamte, the terrorists escaped in a stolen police jeep past Metro cinema and towards Chowpatty.

At this point, I have learnt that initially, the Mumbai police force, including the three policemen who laid down their lives (see above), did not realize that they were up against people who had not only the technical knowhow to carry out a sophisticated operation of terror or the arms and the ammunition to fulfill their ambitions of bringing a city – and indeed, a nation, to its knees, but also that they were completely emotionless and cruel to the point of being devoid of any feelings: they went about the act of killing these decorated officers with complete insouciance and no regard for their status or rank. This very fact should have, and probably did, alert the intelligentsia among the police, the strategic forces and others, that they had a big cherry on their hands and it would be some time before they could swallow and digest it.

The terrorists then probably proceeded to their three target buildings, and planted bombs in the taxis that left them at their destinations. These bombs exploded at various locations all over Mumbai, depending on where the cabs went after leaving them; thus, one cab exploded near Dockyard road station, one at distant Vile Parle, and one near Napean Sea Road: all bombs probably activated by remote mobile-phone triggered detonators. These taxi blasts served to terrorise the entire city, and at the same time, threw red herrings about what the terrorists were up to.

The action then shifted to the three buildings – not buildings all, because two of them are five star hotels and more than that – they are landmarks of Mumbai. The Taj Palace Hotel, with over 400 rooms – located at the Gateway of India and the Trident and Oberoi hotels, located at the prestigious Nariman Point. In addition, they also targeted a non-descript building going by the name of Nariman Building – located just inside the main Shahid Bhagatsingh Road and ahead of the Colaba Market. This building is a community center for a certain sect of Jews, and also houses many Jewish families in it.

I want to ask here why they chose only these three structures and none other. I think that they realized that the two hotels would be mostly populated by foreign tourists and the third building already had Jews, traditional enemies of Moslems worldwide. Once they were inside these buildings, the next stage in their act of terror happened.

It is believed by the police that at the Taj, they had two staff from the house-keeping department, who let some of their associates in with the weapons and other things a week or two ahead of their D-day. Thus, the terrorists already had the master keys to the various sections of the hotel, the map of the hotel, and much necessary inside information about the “lie of the land” as it were. They were able to stay inside the hotel as guests, planning every single step of their coming assault. They ate, slept and played out full rehearsals of the entire plan a full week ahead!

I am pretty certain that they staked out the Oberoi in much the same way, and also visited Nariman Building and strategized everything there as well. Thus, when the actual action began, they went in with full knowledge of what they would be doing over the next few days – or more, depending on how everything panned out.

After listening to the news all over on TV and reading articles and news items, my reckoning is that Mumbai actually escaped a lot of damage only because of three reasons:

a) The terrorists lost a raft at mid-sea with hundreds of explosives and ammunition. They reached Mumbai by rafts in a boat from Karachi via Porbunder (although the last point has not yet been substantiated and the first point has been denied strongly by the Pakistani Government).

b) The NSG commandos were there quite early in action, although they still took 4 hours to reach from Delhi to Mumbai

c) The attacks began at night – or else there would have been tremendous damage at CST and in the hospitals.

It seems that the terrorists had planned on eliminating 5000 people; in the event, a loss that is much lesser in numbers is more than “compensated” by the brutal manner in which the killings took place: over 50 dead as they waited in the concourse of the railway station; entire families who were waiting to travel to their home-town were eliminated; men, women and children killed in cold blood as they sat eating in the restaurant in the Trident; employees of the hotel killed in their working places – the kitchens, the restaurants and the service areas of the Taj; and, finally, people killed on the roads of Mumbai, as the terrorists took to them en route to their own destinations.

Above all, the entire operation was carried out by the terrorists with an expertise and proficiency hitherto unseen in terrorist actions in our country and outside. Flying two planes (or four) recklessly through buildings needs average accuracy; planting bombs in busy marketplaces needs planning, but little accuracy; however, commandeering three entire buildings and mocking the hundreds of security forces with explosives while being just 3-4 in number speaks of astonishing planning and deadly accuracy. Thus, it would be fair to say that modern, hi-tech terrorism has finally arrived in India. And to expect our untrained policemen or home-guards to counter these people is sheer stupidity.

In the event, the successful termination of the attack was only thanks to the intervention of the black cat commandos and the factors already discussed above.

Where do we go from here? What does the government need to do to prevent such dastardly acts in future? I will discuss this in the last part of my article.

A Brutal Assault I

Yes, I am a Mumbaikar. I live a normal, non-descript life in a small locality in South Mumbai. I have dreams and aspirations, successes and failures, problems and difficulties just like all you readers out there. However, what I really want as a citizen of the World's most populous democracy is to be allowed to live my small, non-descript and non-lime lighted life SAFELY and in PEACE.

After all, who doesn't? Even the rich and the famous want the same things. I am, in that respect at least, as ambitious or non-ambitious as they are, or the beggar on the street is - which, thankfully, I am not. We all want to live peacefully as we journey through life, don't we? And who is to ensure that we do so? The elected representatives of the country, state, city and locality, of course.

While I am not equipped to understand which aspects of security are "central" matters, which "state" matters and which are within the ambit of the "local municipality", I am certainly sure that all of them failed to stop the three nights and two days of terror that hit Mumbai starting at or around 9:30 p.m. on the 26th of November, 2008.

I must say this at the outset: this is solely my own work, inspired both, by the hours of sitting glued in front of the TV and watching the news channels nearly 12-16 hours a day, and by the reactions of my family and me, as we went about trying to preserve a modicum of "normalcy" in our life.

I was returning from my clinical practice when I saw a few bullet-proof jacketed policemen on the road near J.J. Hospital. Something did not seem right, and when I reached home, I learnt from a family member that there had been firing near C.S.T. railway station. You can then imagine how the next 60-70 hours must have passed. Immediately, I was there before the TV, switching on one of the news channels, and I saw the beginning moments of what became, for me and for millions of others, the worst three nights and two days of my life.

Let me hasten to say that I haven't lost any family member, or property, or had any personal assault upon my physical being, but my mind and heart have been rendered asunder by the devilish actions of the dozen or more individuals who carried out the most fiendish plan almost to perfection. Even their death must have been planned, since they were "fidayeen" who were prepared to die for what they believed was a just cause.

And what did they want? Money? Fame? Perhaps fame, but definitely not money, since they sent an email that asked the government of India to "stop atrocities" and "release all Moslems" from their grasps within jails or incarceration. They wanted the erstwhile Moslem states of India (read Kashmir, Hyderabad etc.) to be released from the sovereignty of India.

And above all, they espoused the cause of jehad.

Is this the right way to conduct jehad? I think no one will disagree with me when we say that terrorists are totally misguided about what they think should be the right form of jehad. Moslem scholars all over the world have denounced terrorism as a form of righteous jehad and condemned those who would choose physical violence as the correct way to influence the world and to change the ways of non-Moslems. I ask you: can a parent forcefully control his/her offspring? Then how can terrorists hope to seek governments to submit to their nefarious suggestions by use of brutal force?

And herein lies the paradox of the tragedy that played out in the past 72 hours in Mumbai. The terrorists came via the marine route with arms, ammunitions and explosives that were so huge in quantity that they could have possibly completely demolished all the three structures that they attacked: Hotel Taj Palace, Hotel Trident and Oberoi (which are actually two separate buildings adjacent to each other at Nariman Point) and the Nariman Building at Colaba. Their avowed plan was to do precisely that: they wanted to injure India so badly that it would never recover economically, politically, psychologically or any other way. They wanted to do all that, and also demoralize every citizen of India. And, additionally, by hitting out at 5-star hotels, they wanted to hurt Americans, Israelis, and citizens from all over the world who had come to India to enjoy its wonderful hospitality.

And, I daresay, they wanted to cock a snoot at the mighty United States of America and show them what they could do – when they wanted, with whomever they wanted.

In my next entry, along with a discussion of how the actual terror played out, I am going to ask several questions to the authorities who have failed utterly. We are alive and the tragedy has passed only because of the valour and bravery of the armed forces, some of whom gave their lives to eliminate the terrorists.

Night of Terror ... and not yet over: Mumbai 11/26

Most readers would be aware of how terrorists have held Mumbai hostage since 9:30 p.m. on the 26th of November ... and right up to now ... as they continue to shoot and terrorise innocent people at more than one location ...I am too shocked to write coherently for now, but suffice to say that this is the worst act of terrorism for India ... ever.

Writing this on the evening of the 27th: the siege at Taj and Oberoi (Trident) hotels and at Nariman House continues. So far, over 100 people have died, including 6 foreigners and 14 policemen (which includes 3 decorated policemen - Chief of ATS Hemant Karkare, DIG of ATS Kamte and Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar). At the time of writing this, I have learnt that these are terrorists who came by boat from Porbunder in Gujarat. They have been hoarding large numbers of AK 47 machine guns and hand grenades for over 2-3 weeks inside the two hotels. When the attacks started, they created many areas of confusion by having bombs explode inside taxis in places as far off as Vile Parle, Dockyard Road, Colaba Market, Napean Sea road etc. This was then followed by attacks at the CST railway station, and then, the three locations that I have listed at the beginning of this paragraph.

I was up, watching TV, till 3.00 a.m. Then, I have cued in again at about 7 a.m. Through the night, shooting, fires and throwing of grenades have continued in and around Taj Palace, Hotel Trident and Nariman Building. There were over 400 people inside the Taj, but they have mostly all been removed to safety by the time I write this (it is 3.00 p.m. GMT at present). At the Trident, there are still over a 100 people trapped inside their rooms. At Nariman Building, there is a family of 7 Israelis - which stay inside. There are 3-4 terrorists inside Taj, 2-3 inside the Trident and over 6-9 of them in the Israeli-occupied building. 5 terrorists have been shot dead since yesterday night and over 11 have been arrested. More later ...

Living in Mumbai in the rains

While thinking about what to write in this blog today, it suddenly struck me that I have so many thoughts about the rains that have hit Mumbai city since the past seven days, so why not write about that?

As any reader knows, Mumbai is located on the western side of India and is an island city connected to the mainland just below the Gujarat projection on the map of India. Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, and is called the urbs prima Indis, or "India's first city". The western coast of India comprises coastal areas of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra, as also Goa. The Konkan belt of Maharashtra is the most famous of all after Goa; it is famed for several things, but mostly for Ratnagiri and Devgad Alphonso mangoes. The Sahyadri mountains lie to the east of the Konkan belt and shield the parts of India to their east away from the buffetting rains that come to the Konkan belt, thanks to the South-westerly monsoon winds. Mumbai lies in the Arabian sea, and the winds that hit it from the S-W region bring with them the famoues Mumbai rains.

These rains have been immortalised in movies and literature. Hindi movies, made chiefly in Mumbai's famous "Bollywood" have always had a love-love relationship with rains, because, after all, water makes women more sensuous and desirable. Zeenat Aman, Smita Patil, Sridevi, and several other heroines of the silver screen have all danced in the rains while belting out melodious songs. Who can forget Sridevi's dance "Kaate nahin katte din ye raat" from Mr. India, or "Hai hai yeh majboori" of Zeenat for Manoj Kumar's Roti Kapada aur Makaan" ... both excellent songs picturised in the rains.

My personal take on rains: they are great when one is indoors, and is looking out at them; they are horrible when one is at their mercy - outdoors without proper rain-protection. This year, they hit without a clue to their arrival on the 5th of June. Since then, rains are pouring relentlessly ... 7 days later. I usually travel on a two-wheeler, and rains make it necessary to wear a rain-suit while riding a scooter. This makes the whole thing very inconvenient and problematic.

One thing that I am already enjoying thanks to the rain? It has to be "fried foods" which are considered a bit safer to eat in this climate and season as compared to other seasons.