26/11- A Tribute

I fail to understand how and why people snatch lives of others even at the cost of losing their own lives.

What is the motivation or ill-conceived idea? Not something for present, but for future that nobody has seen? Is it really for a cause or a misguided misadventure? Is the future more important than the present?

Questions are many but difficult to be answered. I was in Mumbai then. Yes, exactly 13 years back on the 26th November, 2008.

I had just come back to home from Bank. Someone sent me a message that there was shooting going on at CSMT Railway Station. I just ignored it, as film shooting takes place all across Mumbai. That was nothing unusual.

But when I switched on TV for news, I realised the gravity of the situation. I couldn’t sleep the whole night, as I continued to watch the terrible scenes and sequences live and uninterrupted.

Ten terrorists with hand-held weapons coming in by the sea had killed 166 innocent people. See the irony that this day we observe as the National Constitution Day and National Law Day.

The next day I had to take classes for my banker colleagues on behavioural science, but the attendance was thin and discussions centred around the terrorist attack and behaviour. It was a very unusual class. The whole city was in the mourning.

That dark night stretched over three long days is still vivid in the memory of all Mumbaikars and Indians.

Mumbai is the capital of bollywood, where dark is not something to be afraid of. It’s where the magic resides and the imagination runs free. But who has the right to impose such an unholy darkness on us?

I along with others hereby pay a humble tribute to those pious souls. But the real tribute would be our collective commitment that we shall not let the terrorists define who we become. Let’s not allow those misguided youths to deviate us from the path of humanity and plural solidarity.

–Kaushal Kishore