by Geeta Rajeev

The lump of emotions in my throat was so hard that I could not swallow even my own saliva. I retired for the night and closed my eyes. A good night’s sleep and next morning everything will be back to normal for me. But those gory scenes returned sharper in the blackness of the night. Defeated, I got up. I can’t keep running away from reality any longer. I had to help myself to face the reality - a reality that I am living in a time when anything can happen in the next step of mine; where death is no longer an event that can happen to others and not me.

November 26, 2008 – Wednesday night 9.30 P.M. when rest of the country prepared to retire for the night, Mumbai was as awake as the daylight. The nightlife had just begun. The businessmen, socialites, tourists, friends, boys, girls, families gather to have a leisurely meal at their favourite jaunts – The Taj, The Oberoi, The Trident. Families at Nariman House might have called it a day. Commuters at CST were probably hurrying back from work to reach their families. And all hell broke loose. The gunshots, the blasts shattered the calmness of the night with dance of death all around, blood flowing freely like small rivulets. Pain, shrieks, heart-wrenching cries…. I felt a bullet piercing right through my heart. The bullet did not kill me but it shattered my seemingly safe comfort zone. The bullet was of pain, of the thought that I could have been one of them. The bullet was of shock, frustration, of uncontrollable anger that I felt like gunning down those devils that caused this unforgivable mayhem. As the terrorists’ faces flashed on TV sets, every mother prayed that may she never have a son like that. Every household hugged their close ones thanking God for the gift of life. Three days of deprivation of normalcy in life and the loudness of screams mellowed, the madness threatened to settle. It was as if life was limping back to normal. Was it?

The wounds are still oozing blood, the pain still agonizing and the anger still burning within. No. We cannot let this pain die. Life cannot go back to normal for every Indian who burns within like me, who cannot forgive those who ganged up to maim India. I could feel the vacuum every parent was experiencing at the loss of their child. I cry with pain at the agony of every child left alone to fend for itself in this world due to sadistic pleasure of few inhuman beings. I feel for every person who lost a close one be it a friend, a colleague or even just an acquaintance. I feel I lost someone my own. But life cannot come to a standstill. Life has to move on. Lessons have to be learnt. We have to evolve ourselves into stronger human beings. We have to train ourselves to being more aware, more alert and more sensitive to our surroundings. We cannot afford to just live our own lives till the next terror attack blasts the calmness of our households.

• Anger is a natural emotion. It can be either positive or negative. Suppression of anger can prove detrimental to one’s own self and our surroundings. Suppressed anger gives rise to violent behaviour which provokes negative thoughts and action. Every Indian is angry at this point. Let us direct our anger towards a positive direction. Let us channelize this anger to bring about a revolution that forces the System to change for the better.

• Loss is always painful and death is an irretrievable loss. Life comes to a standstill when the person who was a part of our life is suddenly no longer there. We have every right to feel shattered…lost…alone. But justice is everyone’s right - living or dead. The living can fight for their rights but the dead need us to get them justice. The justice of punishing those responsible for snatching away their innocent lives. In this pain, let us get stronger in our determination to fight against the System. Let our pain see us through till we succeed in our ultimate mission. Let this pain show us the way and remain as our strength.

• A feeling of hopelessness prevails when a terror attack cripples the normalcy of life. We sub-consciously start believing that we can’t do anything about it. We doubt our own individual strength and get overwhelmed by our smallness in this universe. All of us want to fight for betterment. All of us want a stronger system in place so that we are prepared to face any external attack. But we resist initiating that change for fear of ridicule, lack of support and fear to take up the responsibility of a leader. Let this terror attack teach us to be brave enough to initiate action. Let us learn not to be complacent.

• Every Indian is powerful because we are all staunch patriots at heart. The 26/11 terror attack has shaken the whole nation. Let us all draw lessons from it to inculcate inner strength, to be brave in the face of adversities, to have the guts to come forward and lead, to act rather than to sympathize.

The 26/11 tragedy has shaken me up as a citizen of my beloved country. But I refuse to treat it as just another tragedy that happened to someone else. I have experienced personal growth through my shock, fear and pain of the whole incident. I have initiated these thought and I move to take actions. Join me in raising our voice. Join me in letting the leaders at the helm know we are concerned about our country. We wont keep quiet. We need to be assured of our fundamental rights of safety and security. Jai Hind.

Jan 2009