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[img_assist|fid=829|thumb=1|alt=Bombay blasts|caption=Image from BBC]
I don't remember ever enjoying the train rides in Mumbai's local trains. They were bipolar extremes maquerading as public transport. You were squished by humanity from all sides, and hence you floated into and out of the trains, a human buoy. Your nose was assaulted by the unholy mix of sweat and Cuticura powder and smelly shoes. But when you went back to your small town life, you complained to anyone who would listen how you never had to wait more than two minutes for a missed train in Bombay.
The glamorous dream Bombay of my childhood has transformed into the humid, horrific Mumbai of my adult life. It's my port of entry each time I return to India. There is no easy way to write about the Mumbai blasts. When I read the casualty numbers this morning, they were put at about 30. It slowly climbed up to 190. I was filled with almost a sense of thankfulness that the toll was still a fathomable number. I have to be honest here. I feel bad about feeling this way, and it bothers me that the world might look at these numbers and think along the same lines.
The numbers are comparable to the toll in the Madrid blasts. They're about a tenth of 9/11's casualties, and almost nothing compared to 2004's Boxing Day tsunami. In a poor Third World country with one billion people, of what significance is 190?
To Mumbaikars, the seven blasts of 11/7 might represent a certain degree of discomfort in the immediate future - loss of revenue, loss of reliable transportation. According to the BBC, the city's trains services about 6 million people a day. Any disruption is bound to hurt the city's economy.
To the various Indian government agencies managing the aftermath, those 190 are worth INR 100,000 each (roughly USD 2222). That is the amount promised to the next of kin of deceased persons. An injured person is worth half that amount. Desperate families might clamor for more, and then one by one, quietly accept the amounts. People will debate the worth of such compensation, and this day and these numbers too will be forgotten, only to be trotted out the next time something like this happens.
To India's religious fundamentalists, these deaths might represent 190 individual slights that need to redressal. These might just be the acts that spur another Godhra. Or maybe India's secular tradition will withstand these thousand small cuts, as Times of India reports. Only time will tell.
Image from BBC
Contributing Editor Priya Ramachandran also blogs at Words on Water
Technorati Tags: Mumbai | Bombay | blasts | train blasts | India
