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ShareThe first anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks passed by as the country saluted the irrepressible spirit of a megapolis which stood the spray of bullets, but never cringed in abject surrender. As cameras and reams of newsprint recounted the horrors that kissed Mumbai last year, I was particularly moved by the battering the kids of some of the slain residents have had to take. For the mature, it was a colossal tragedy, for the impressionable immature, it was -- to take a cue from English poet, John Milton -- innocence lost.
I remember a line from English author Graham Greene's delightful novel The Power And The Glory that there is always one moment in childhood when the door opens, lets the future in and thus changes life. The ghastly unfolding of the day saw that "moment" arrive in the lives of many a kid, prematurely. A life lost in the family and their lives changed forever. For most, it marked the marauding of childhood and stepping into manhood -- manhood thrust upon by cruelty that altered the child's perspective in life.
"There is a garden in every childhood," said novelist Elizabeth Lawrence, "an enchanted place where colours are brighter, the air softer and the morning more fragrant." In the shattered pieces of that "garden" trampled upon by 26/11, one could see a four-year-old Omkar Surve wailing for his father, Sanjay, and his mother comforting him that he would soon be back from Singapore. Omkar's father fell to terrorist bullets at the Oberoi Trident hotel. Seven-year-old Ketki was too traumatised to speak about her father's death. Fourteen-year-old Aditya Sharma from Thane vowed never to celebrate his birthday again as his father was slain at CST on the same day. "How can I? My father's memories will haunt me," a devastated Aditya cried.
Now tell me, who will account for such corrupted innocence? Won't these kids grow up with a perspective shaped by blood? Won't it deprive them of every drop of the milk of human kindness at an early stage? The anger, dejection, and indeed, disenchantment will in some way find expression in the future. Distrust, writ large on their psyche, will impact their demeanour. Let's admit that personal loss can never be shared. To bear the cross would mean growing with a feeling of insecurity and cynicism, which at a later stage could concretise to a point of no-return.
Hail Mumbai. Here's where you shine with your indomitable spirit. The terminators have come and gone, calamities and carnages have tried to subjugate you, but to no avail, of course. It's this ever-so-accommodating city that one expects to give these hapless innocent children a chance to reconstruct their lives. It is the kindness of the great city that one expects would expunge the distrust sown by the traumatic experience. What someone said about New York after 9/11 can be said of Mumbai as well: The gutted, wrenched, scarred city has survived. Not the same though, but sane and more gracious
in grief.
Let's all say Amen to that.
