Family Switch and Terrorism

The Pictures are of the Trident-Oberoi (the big tower and the little tower just to the right) after the attacks with broken windows, my new host parents (host dad standing)and I in Pune with my host mom's parents and another relative (who is actually from Vancouver), the Hard Rock Cafe Mumbai, me infrot of the Taj a couple months before the attacks, and CST a main railway terminus in south Bombay which was attacked by terrorists on the inside (800,000 people travel through this terminus every day).

Sorry it has been so long, my internet hasn’t been working for a couple weeks and I really have no desire to write this but here it is anyway. When I left you I had just been to Goa.
I had a few average days then I changed host families. My new family is great. They like a 15 minute walk away from my old house in a very large but old flat. They also have their own terrace and a dog. We live less than a 5 minute walk from Dadar station, the busiest station in Bombay. Dadar station has 1 million people pass through it every day, if you are near the door at Dadar station you will get pushed out with everyone else because chances are everyone within 3-4 meters of the door is getting out at Dadar. I had trouble sleeping the first couple nights with the trains but now I barely hear them even when I am awake. There is one not so good thing about the house though, there is a vegetable market around the building so it is always so busy and there are vegetables everywhere. I have to walk under a bridge on the way to the station and it smells so strong of coriander and peppers that your eyes squint and no matter how many times you have walked through there you start coughing. I do like the location and the family is great.
The family consists of my host dad Girish (who is the secretary of the Rotary club), my host mom Supriya, my host grandparents and my host dog. My host family is Maharashtran so they speak Marathi at home. They are Brahmites or Brahmans so they eat mostly vegetarian food but will prepare meat for me sometimes. Usually breakfast is North American style so I like that. Lunch is some sort of vegetable, chapatti bread, dal and a sweet. Dinner is much of the same. We eat dinner at eight which is early for Indians but I like eating at that time which is a little closer to my 6-7 Canada dinner time. My host dad works with Whirlpool bathroom accessories and supplies these products to consumers along with assembling them and doing other bathroom work. I don’t know many particulars about my host dad’s work but will find out.
I recently looked at the weather in Calgary and would like to let you know the weather here just so you can feel bad. Next few days are highs of about 35-33 and lows of about 24-22, the humidity is also crazy bad and it is sunny. I will tell you one thing though, I miss the cold. I miss scrapping ice off my car in the morning, waking up only to dread the first cold foot on hardwood, shoveling snow, skiing, and playing football with fingers you can’t even move. I miss the feeling.
Another feeling I miss is unwavering security of Canada. As you may have heard Bombay (my city) was the recent victim of a terrorist attack. I will let you know I was safe the whole time and never felt at risk but I definitely view the city in a different way now. Terrorists who had been training for 4 months in Pakistan and were told to go to Bombay to raise as much havoc as they could landed (by hijacked boat) on the 26th of November. They were armed with AK 47 rifles, hand guns, grenades, dry fruits and other provisions. Ten terrorists in groups of 2 attacked different locations all over south Bombay. They were targeting the rich and foreigners. Notable places that were attacked include: Leopold café, CST (a main railway terminus in South Bombay), Taj Hotel, Oberoi-Trident hotel, Nariman house and a few more places. There were hostage situations at 3 locations which proceeded for a maximum of 60 hours (at the Taj Hotel). In total about 200 people died including 26 foreigners and 14 police men. Nine of the ten terrorists were killed and the one who was captured has been questioned rigorously. There is no telling how many terrorists actually landed in Bombay and there are rumors that terrorists are still around. When I first walked out of the house after the attacks the first thing that struck me was the lack of energy in the people. Normally the city has so much energy it can not contain itself but when I walked out of the house I immediately noticed the lack of noise, the decreased speed of walking and the general somber mood. The country is not used to this kind of terrorism; they are used to the bomb blasts so dealing with this was an entirely different ball game. The government needed to bring in the National Security Guard commandos and even they had a hard time with the well trained terrorists. The situation ended but the Taj hotel will never be the same to me again and I will always view the city in a different way now. The attack was very well planned but could have been much worse. The terrorist claims that they meant this to be India’s 9/11 as they were to kill up to 5,000 people and blow up the Taj hotel. Thankfully they didn’t. Recent news has disclosed many other things about the attack including the training of the terrorists, which was very interesting, other explosives found, and lots of claims that the city was warned. The terrorists were trained to be able to stay up for a week with sleep deprivation training and they were also told to take human shields to a boat to take them out to sea where they would meet a getaway boat. If that didn’t work the ability to swim 15km out into sea was also included in their training. Can you believe that the terrorists believed that they would live through this whole ordeal? Explosives were found at the Taj in bags and yesterday a bag which was in the unclaimed baggage left but those who fled the railway terminus was also found to contain 8kgs of explosives. Like I said they are finding out more every day. The people here are essentially blaming the government for allowing this to happen and criticizing their response to the situation. That is probably enough news for you.
Now my story (which really isn’t all that interesting): I went to a volunteer organization in the afternoon from 2-6 and was home by 8. I ate dinner and was just reading at about 11 when an Indian friend called me and asked me where I was. I said I was home and he informed me of the terrorist attacks in south Bombay. I was shocked to the max you know that feeling when all the blood rushes to your head when you are stressed or get caught in a lie. That is what happened to me. I was fine after a minute and proceeded to watch the news till 2am phoning my mom in Canada during a break. The next morning I woke up at regular time and went to yoga, but there were only 15 people there of 50. I came home and watched news all day. I got a phone call from my districts IYE chairman and he said ‘where are you?’ I said ‘home’ and he said ‘good stay there.’ He had informed an exchange representative in Canada of the situation and just wanted to make sure I was fine. I spent much of the next couple days at home watching the news unfold before me especially with the hostage situations. The stories did get a little repetitive after a few hours though. My mom wanted me to phone every 12 hours or so to check up on me so I did that for a couple days. On the whole she handled the situation very well, or at least it sounded like that on the phone. Unfortunately 2 Canadians died in the attacks. My host family and I went to Pune on the third day of the attack which was a Friday. Pune is a city which is a 3 hour drive from Bombay. We woke up on the Saturday to find that the terrorists had been killed. We had already planned this holiday so it wasn’t like we were fleeing the city.
Some other stories of people I know. I have a few friends in south Bombay so they heard the gunshots/explosions and saw the fires. Also one exchange student went through CST (the railway terminus) a little more than an hour before the attack and the terrorist they captured alive said they planned to attack the station an hour earlier in rush hour. Another exchange student was in Leopold Café at a window seat, at the time of the terrorist attack but he was there 2 days earlier. As I said earlier I never really felt at risk but it does make me view the city differently, like when I see the places which were attacked and visualize what happened there you can never believe that this happened. I suppose if I really thought hard I might become worried but I am not really the thinking type. I often say I should just sit and think then after about a minute of thinking I realize something I would much rather be doing or something that needs to be done. This lack of thought can be beneficial though, such as when I don’t give a second thought to leave the house when someone else might convince themselves that it is too dangerous. Thankfully the city shares most of my feelings towards the situation and so it is pretty much back to normal now. People often talk about how you can not break the spirit of Bombay, for example after the 2006 train blasts everyone rode the train the very next day, and I am seeing that spirit first hand.
This was a life changing experience and aside from the obvious down points this will be a very good story to tell one day. Like at party, ‘so what you can bench press 300 lbs, I was in Mumbai during a terrorist attack.’ I am very glad I don’t have to go home but am worried about the India-Pakistan relationship and I really hope it does not intensify. That is my terrorism story, I know, not too interesting on my part, but it was really weird to live 10-15 kms away from attacks after I have been living in my little shell of security in Canada.

I am going up to North India on a Rotary organized trip starting on December 7th and extending till the 22nd. We will be in Rajasthan (cities include: Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur), Agra, Delhi, and Haridwar. Notable things I will be seeing include: the Taj Mahal, jungle safari at tiger reserve, various famous temples, museums, a theme park, a cultural performance in the desert along with a camel ride, parliament buildings in New Delhi, river rafting on the Ganges River, and many other things.

One other thing I have to mention is I went to the Hard Rock Cafe Mumbai and had an amazing time listening to music, eating beef steak (which was amazing) and just savoring every moment.

This kind of went on much longer than intended. Next blog I will say what I’ve been up to but it won’t be for a few weeks unless I get an incredible urge to write. Hope you are well back home and getting prepared for Christmas or exams if you are a university student.

-Allen