Thursday, July 13, 2006

On moving on ...

Amit Varma has a neat piece on moving on after the blasts.
Anyway, we've got to move on. We'll go back to travelling on trains despite knowing that no police on earth can stop such terrorism. We'll go to malls on weekends, despite knowing that they're such logical soft targets, that any moment, boom. Some of us will blog, and will point to funny posts and make wisecracks, or will pontificate self-importantly about the world.

So see you tomorrow.
To tell you the truth, I feel guilty about returning to "normal programming" on this blog. (Whatever that might mean). Stupid. Silly. Arrogant. I wasn't even in Bombay. There's 180+ families in mourning right now, ripped apart by the designs of evil men. How dare I compare myself to that?

I don't.

Home is a weird concept for someone who's moved around so much growing up. Coming to India is "going back home." But not really. I fit in here, and I don't. And yes, I use that title generally for Columbia, SC where I've lived a third of my life, where I have put down roots, found community and a family of choice (and which I'll be saying a bittersweet farewell to in a month or so).

Bombay, however, as I wrote, is in my bones. No matter where life sends me, I'll be a Bombayite. A Mumbaikar. It has a special place in my heart - a place that is now darkened a bit. Twisted. Wounded.

[I'm off to Bombay tomorrow by the mid-morning flight. The Prime Minister is supposed to be coming to visit tomorrow as well. Hell. I hope it's at a much later or much earlier time, else I'll be stuck somehwere in traffic.]

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