Mumbai: City of Dreams, Target of Terrorists

Connecticut resident Sujata Srinivasan, the editor of CT Indian Life, started her journalism career in Bombay, now called Mumbai. (photo: SujataSrinivasan.com)

The following essay is from the December 2008 issue of CTIndianLife.com, a monthly publication.

Mumbai, Target of Destroyers of Dreams

Mumbai, city of dreams, torn apart by bullets, bombs and hate. Please, oh please don’t stop dreaming.

Do you remember when I was 22, I came to you starry-eyed and smitten to begin my journalistic career? You were my New York, London and Paris. And like so many, I believed with all my heart that you are an alchemist who would take my raw, naive dreams and with your magic, turn it into a glorious, golden reality. I fought and cajoled my parents to come to you for my internship. 

“What’s this fixation with Bombay? Why can’t you stay closer to home? You can pursue your dreams anywhere, you know,” my father said.

Sure, I knew that. But when you’re 22, an age where life spreads out before you like a vast canvas, you believed that Mumbai (then Bombay) had the most brilliant colors to paint your painting with.  

I surged out with the crowds from the train station, heading into a seductive spell that is Mumbai. I worked at my internship with a daily business newspaper, all the while letting the city romance me. We had a heady, unforgettable affair.

There was the Queen’s Necklace in Marine Drive – a fusion of lights competing with the star-strewn sky above. My favorite restaurant Jazz by the Bay, where for the first time in my life, I heard and fell in love with this music from a different world.

Fashion Street, where one could buy a stylish pair of American jeans on a shoestring budget. Colaba, home to the Gateway of India monument by the choppy sea; home to Leopold Cafe, where lovers held hands and whispered sweet things to each other, alas, now riddled by bullet wounds to its body and soul; and home to the achingly beautiful Taj Mahal hotel, now burned down and left to die.

When I was in Mumbai, I stayed at a working women’s hostel in Breach Candy. It was there that I met young women who had, like me, come from all over the country.

Every single one of them was on their way to somewhere. Every single one of them was exploding with passion for life. To pursue a master’s degree in the United States; to write a book; to launch a company; to make documentary films – to do what they love doing and be the best that they can be.

The terrorists picked Mumbai for the same reason that I did – it was a city of dreams.

And if you really wanted to bring a city down on its knees, you struck at the core of its heart, where the dreams are. Leopold Cafe, where lovers dream their dreams of a future together; the Taj Mahal hotel, where businesspeople from all over the world dream big dreams of making their millions and billions; the Victoria Terminal train station, where each day Mumbai’s multitude throng to workplaces to chase their career dreams.

The terrorists were outraged that people dared to dream so brazenly. To them, it was indecent to hope so much. To laugh so much. To indulge so much.   And thus people had to pay for their ‘excesses’ with their lives. 

The terrorists that struck around the world – in New York, London, Madrid, and now Mumbai – have one clear message. Stop dreaming, or you will be punished.

How dare they, with their cowardly tactics of intimidation and fear, aim their machine guns at my dreams and yours? 

We must unite. Mumbai to Madrid to London to New York, we are all the same. We are dream-chasers. We are strong and resilient. We have always been that way and we always will.

And the only way we can defeat the terrorists is to keep dreaming our dreams and chasing our rainbows. For there’s nothing that depresses terrorists more than hope and optimism, and the brazenness to dream.

Sujata Srinivasan is a Connecticut-based freelance journalist and the editor of CT Indian Life. Years ago, she had an internship with The Economic Times in Mumbai.  Since then, her work has appeared in The Indian Express, Connecticut Business Magazine, The Hartford Courant and other publications.

source:  CTIndianLife.com