Stop trying

Its Day 3 of the terror attack on Bombay and once the dust settles, as it inevitably must I will focus on composing some of the many thoughts flitting across my mind. For now, only one thing is clear in all this: they will never learn. Let me explain. Time and again Bombay has been battered, attacked and targeted. This current ongoing attack has definitely changed the game. Terror experts globally now will be scratching their chins and learning the rules of the new game. What is clear is this time, Blackberry phones were used and tremendous planning went into visiting death on Bombay.

Which brings me to the point I want to make. It isn't new or enlightening though: this is Bombay.

No matter the amount of planning and master plotting these misguided souls keep doing to visit death on people in this city, they still aren't intelligent enough to understand this simple reality: this is Bombay.

I learned this in the 1 year I lived there. But I grasped this fact a few days into first visiting this city as a kid: something is different here folks. Floods, rain, riots, bombs and now people going about with automatic weapons on streets: local trains run on time. People go to work. People continue to do what they do best in this city: try to make a better life for themselves. Because after all is said and done, isn't that the basic tenet of our existence?

And Bombay does it better than anyone else. Yes this time the blow is severe and Bombay has been left gasping, but make no mistake, soon trains will be packed again, South Bombay buzzing, the Zodiac Grill full, Bollywood releasing a slew of movies and I'll again be enjoying the sunset over Marine Drive from the lobby of the Oberoi: this is Bombay.