29 Nov 2008

Mumbai

So it happens again. Young men who are prepared to die for a cause decide that they must first kill others. On this occasion they have brought that death and injury to the city of Mumbai.
Grave-faced, sober-suited experts are brought before the television cameras to discuss ramifications, likely causes, likely sources. Is it this faction or that, a breakaway movement, a group financed abroad, a rogue element, a new dimension in terror? They express their opinions, express their regrets, shake their heads solemnly, and the news reader smoothly moves on to the next eyewitness, the next snatch of mobile phone footage, the next item on the agenda.
For those of us who write about far away places in the context of holidays or business trips, the context of smart hotels and restaurants, of sightseeing and entertainment, the news that comes from Old Bombay is doubly distressing. Some of us have friends in India and feel sorrow on a personal level. How can such an event as this happen in such a city as that?
We don't even know about the cause behind the carnage - the "reason" that justifies murder. Nor need we. No grievance justifies murder.
All we can do is let the moment pass, resolve to help undo the damage done to India's "image", assure the doubtful that the destination is no more dangerous now than it was last week, mourn for the dead, sympathise with the grieving - and curse the stupidity of those who, in their fanaticism, believe that sending brainwashed "martyrs" into battle will achieve their ends. It will not. It cannot.
Today our sympathies are with Mumbai. Tomorrow it could be any town or city anywhere in the world. Though he wrote in a different context, John Donne was right to declare that "No man is an island".
As "travel experts" we may be called on to give an opinion on events such as this. What can one say other than to echo the comments of a pensioner interviewed in the aftermath of the IRA bomb at Victoria Station, several years ago. Asked by the young reporter if he would continue to use the station, the old man replied to the effect that if he changed his routine in any way "....that would mean the b*st*rds had won. And you must never let the b*st*rds win."
When the dust has settled and the renovations are complete, I hope the tourists and the business travellers will return to Mumbai. We should encourage them to do so.

John Carter, BGTW Chairman