The recent Mumbai blasts were pathetic, a shame. The escalating death toll depressed everyone further reminding them how the terrorists had won again.
If the loss of human life wasn't enough, add the beautiful buildings that were damaged as well. The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai is one of the most exquisite structures in the city. To watch it burn helplessly, physically and live, thick black smoke billowing out of its majestic domes and minarets, was painful. The building that is a museum of sorts, with rich woodwork on its interiors, and which has stood proud and tall for decades, was being forced to petty ashes by idiots who couldn't begin to understand the artichtectural asset that was being destroyed.
Victoria Terminus, which was recently rechristened a domestic name, is the symbol for aspiration. Only a few would understand its symbolism when it appears in Hindi movies, reiterating the eternal rags to riches desire that many who come to Mumbai harbour. The ones who land in the city with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams, hoping that magical Mumbai, the Indian land of unlimited opportunities, will make them all come true.
Leopald's Cafe which was immortalized by Gregory David Roberts' story of Shantharam. The popular haunt of many foreign travellers, a major reason for which it was a target.
I hope you're not raising your eyebrows at the attention I choose to pay to bricks and cement. But the identity of a city, though predominantly associated with its people, has an important relationship with its landmark and often irreplaceable structures.
When the restoration/renovation efforts are complete, guests will continue to check into one of the most luxurious water-front hotel in the world. Railways will continue to ply the ancient tracks of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. And Leopald's Cafe has already reopened, resuming with serving the famous liquor and delicious food it is famous for. But Mumbai has already changed into a city where people feel less safe, with its people and buildings under threat.
1 comment:
I'd written about this, about how I felt when I saw the Taj in flames, when I knew one of my favourite hangouts, Leo's was attacked first and most of all my favourite area in the city massacred.
Buildings are not trivial. They stand testimony to the years and people gone by, to the times, times that have passed and times that may never return again, when they've taken in a little too much.
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