On the morning of November 26, I was invited to speak to the students of Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. Among my audience were students of the catering and hotel management course. The topic I was invited to speak on was ‘Non-violence or Non-existence’. I was illustrating my point by describing how the ‘War on Terror’ had only made our lives more perilous. “When we leave our homes these days we don’t know if we will return. When our near and dear ones say goodbye we don’t know whether they will ever again greet us on our return, this is how insecure our lives have become…”
Listening to me were two young men Gautam Gosain and Sadanand Patil, who at the end of my talk stood up and cheered me. I left, picked up my daughter from St Xavier’s College and returned home. Late that evening terrorists once again ravaged my city and were murdering my fellow Mumbaikars and many who were here as our guests. Their intention was to murder the spirit of Mumbai. The horror lasted for 60 hours, the scars forever.
Meanwhile, I received an e-mail from Sister Fleurette of Sophia Polytechnic. She informed me that my address to her students on November 26 had been prophetic. Gautam Gosain and Sadananda Patil worked at the Taj Mahal hotel after college. That day too after college they along with other friends had gone to the hotel and taken up their duties. I don’t know if they talked about what I had said to them that morning. Sister Fleurette informed me that Gautam and Sadananda did not make it to their homes that night and they
never would.
Gautam and Sadananda were killed in the terrorist attack on the Taj. Two young, promising lives cut short, nipped in the bud. Two families bereaved, traumatised. I am sure when both of them saw inevitable death, what I had said that morning must have rung in their ears. I did not know either of them, if it hadn’t been for my interactions with them that day, I may not have reacted to seeing their names in the
casualty list.
As I write this my fingers are trembling and my eyes are moist. Only one thought echoes in my head, “Why?”
There are other questions lurking in my mind too:
Why are we subjected to such attacks repeatedly?
Why isn’t anything done to ensure our security?
Why aren’t any lessons learnt from the past?
Why are our police so inadequately equipped? Yet they bravely face a foe much better armed and trained.
Where does all the money intended for modernising our police and security forces go?
How long will we gullibly allow our politicians to continue their misrule?
Why does our much hyped bureaucracy keep failing us?
How do we ensure that we don’t keep losing our precious men in the security forces? Not because they are inefficient but because they have been harassed, hounded, victimised, ill-equipped, exploited and subjected to unbearable pressures.
When will our rulers and administrators wake up and at least be honest about providing able and honest governance? “Why?” “When? “What for?”
Our emotions are frayed. There is anger within us. There are people waiting in the wings to exploit our raw emotions and convert them into an orgy of revenge. In the past two days I have heard a lot of very rabid and inflammatory statements. “Lets bomb Pakistan”, “Let's kill Muslims” are the popular refrain. Many desire “an eye for an eye”. When our hearts are wounded and we are grief stricken this sounds great, but it will only lead us to greater grief and tragedy. This is the time for firm action tempered by wisdom. It is a time for introspection. The cure is both external and internal, within us and within our system. We must unselfishly strengthen our democracy, from within.
There is an outpouring of grief for all those who lost their lives in Mumbai. Tributes are pouring in for our fallen martyrs. Their martyrdom will be in vain if we do not change and facilitate the change.
Initially I wanted to take our politicians to task. I began to write but realised that for them I had only expletives and abuse of the filthiest kind. I realised that the adjectives that were pouring out for them would never be published. My article would have been a series of "@#$%^&*".
I leave you with one regret. How I wish the attack on Parliament had been as successful as the one Mumbai had to endure, then I would have thanked the terrorists for ridding us of these 'F&^%*&G B@#$%^&S'.
Terrorists committed mass murder in Mumbai, our rulers, the entire political community and administrators are equally guilty.
Gautam and Sadanand, rest in peace. I wish it
was me.

The writer is founder president, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation