Yesterday at 6.25pm one of the busiest cities in the World came to a total standstill for two minutes.

As the coldwar sirens blared all across Mumbai, millions stopped all conversation, traffic came to a halt and cinemas interrupted films on Tuesday as the Indian city observed a short silence in memory of 182 people killed in last week’s bombings.

They were accompanied by President A.P.J Abdul Kalam as he stood in salute at Mahim station.

But will the terrorists ever be caught? The chances seem grim especially with all our politicians play the blame game that they are so good at!

Received this email from a colleague of mine whose friend narrated his experience on one of the trains on which a bomb went off during the deadly Mumbai bomb blasts of Tuesday.

It goes as follows:

“STUNNED” – Mumbai Mirror.
“7 BLASTS ROCK MUMBAI”- Yahoo! headlines.

Which editor wrote these lines? Which abysmal mother f@#ker had the guts to talk about my motherland, MY CITY being stunned!!! I was there. I was on the train, in the hospital and on the streets and I didn’t see Stunned. I saw Stunning…stunning acts of kindness. And nothing rocked Mumbai. No self respecting Mumbaikar can believe that. No. Its not ‘blasts rock Mumbai’ cause Mumbai rocked, man. She simply ROCKED.

Here is my story.

For those who came in late…I have started working in a tutoring firm at Andheri. So it’s the night shift for me since the students are based in the States. So there I was standing at Dadar station. Waiting for the Borivili fast. She came bang on time. After the normal physical exercise routine (in other cities they call this ‘boarding a train’…we Mumbaikars know better:):):)) I got in. The train started. Next stop Bandra…Lots of people got in…some tried to get out:). After the usual round of expletives, shouting and ‘chod do na yaar…are maramari mat karo’ (forget about it, man…don’t fight guys) the train started.

BOOM!

My first impression was that the overhead wire that supplies current to the train’s engine had snapped. There had been a flash like a yellow light and then the lights went out. People started panicking. I don’t know why but at such times I have the tendency to restore calm….a very close friend had once called this habit…tere mein kida kam nahi hain..(can’t translate this one) Neways, I roared out that people should calm down. Miraculously, they did. Someone asked for the chain to be pulled but by then the motorman had pushed the breaks. I jumped out of the train like the rest of the commuters and saw that the first class compartment ahead of us had blown up. I moved towards the compartment. People had already started pulling others out. Lots of guys had climbed the harbour line bridge that starts near Bandra station. Slowly, the injured started emerging. The first guy whose hand I held was merely stunned. Didn’t have any money left…wallet gone I think. I gave him twenty bucks and he went his way. As I turned towards the train, I saw a guy with lots of blood on his face…thankfully none of it was his. He had temporarily lost his sense of hearing. Walked with him a lil distance. Bandra station was a stone?s throw away from the blown-up compartment. He recovered soon and some one took him to the station. I turned and saw four guys carrying a fifth. The injured man was alive but i think, his hand would have to be amputated. A big guy was holding the patient’s right shoulder was shouting for some one to steady the man’s head which had no support. With nothing else to do, I stepped in.

We took him to Bhaba hospital, Bandra. While the journey up till the auto rickshaw was tough the journey till the hospital was an eye opener. Carrying a 90 kilo man over the railway tracks, then over a 2 foot incline near the tracks, then over a railing and through the jam caused by the numerous autos which were ferrying patients to the hospital was tough even when four of us were carrying him. We reached the main road outside the station and got into the auto. The big saand (strong-guy), who had earlier called me for help, literally dragged a fellow who had hired the auto out and we got ourselves in. The big guy was sitting with the auto driver and I along with two others was holding the injuired man on our laps.

Then the most beautiful thing happened. The guy to my right told the one to my left to start reciting verses from the Koran and to blow on the man’s head. I think it is some Muslim prayer. The big guy said, “Oh Lord! Have Mercy on this man!” A few minutes later that injured man who was half awake all this time started saying “shiv shiv shiv…om namah shivay…om namah shivay.”

When I think back about that moment I smile to myself. We six of us in that small auto heading towards the hospital had done it. We had defeated the terrorists. Who can say we were stunned…we won guys. We won. We defeated the terrorists’ plan by that simple act of helping a fellow INDIAN. We didn’t have to invade Pak or kill Muslims. We had won. Of course we could have lost if the 2 Muslims had walked away from the man knowing that he was Hindu but they didn’t. They continued working with me at the hospital for nearly an hour transporting bodies to the morgue, taking patients to the upper floors and providing a lil water to the other impromptu volunteers. Going towards the office after all this was over, was probably the stupidest thing I ever did but that gave me the chance to see the City become one. Guys in designer tees, shorts etc. were flooding out of their houses with water bottles. The rick I used was stopped in 4 places…two places for others to get in (the driver lied saying we were going to parel.) and at two others, hands full of Parle-G biscuits were thrust in so that we and the thousands of others like us who had been affected by the Western railway system being shut down could have something to eat. The over crowded buses were being given food and water at some signals with people throwing biscuit packets into the bus…even good old Bourbon biscuit…yummy

All in all a lot happened yesterday but my city didn’t budge. We have been hit before, we have been hit yesterday and we will continue to get attacked. The only thing to do is to come together. “Together as One”. For that is what the terrorists don’t want to see. They don’t realise that the more they attack us, the closer we become. We can’t let ourselves go down so we can’t give up.

You may think what I did was pretty heroic…it was may be…but I like so many others wouldn’t like to be called heroes. It feels very uncomfortable. If you want to give us a name just call us Mumbaikars. That name is all-inclusive.

Ishan I. Bhole.

Mumbai came to a shocking standstill on July 11 when serial blasts ripped through its local trains, killing and wounding hundreds. But the city of dreams stood fearless and fighting fit.

Salute Mumbai’s never-say-die spirit and Light a Candle for those who succumbed to the blasts or got injured. For every candle you light, CNN-IBN and Channel 7 will donate Re 1 for the relief of the victims.

Do light a candle. It is free and only takes a minute.

Received two forwards with this letter. It very well could be a real letter from any Mumbaikar to the persons responsible for the bombings yesterday.

Dear Terrorist,

Even if you are not reading this we don’t care. Time and again you tried to disturb us and disrupt our life – killing innocent civilians by planting bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony but every time you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If you wanted to give us a shock then we are sorry to say that you failed miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewhere, not here.

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis and Marathis or Punjabis and Bengalis. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, govt. employees or private employees. WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you like). We will not allow you to disrupt our life like this. On the last few occasions when you struck (including the 7 deadly blasts in a single day killing over 250 people and injuring 500+ in 1993), we went to work next day in full strength. This time we cleared everything within a few hours and were back to normal – the vendors placing their next order, businessmen finalizing the next deals and the office workers rushing to catch the next train. (Yes the same train you targeted) Fathom this: Within 3 hours of the blasts, long queues of blood donating volunteers were seen outside various hospital, where most of the injured were admitted. By 12 midnight, the hospital had to issue a notification that blood banks were full and they didn’t require any more blood. The next day, attendance at schools and office was close to 100%, trains & buses were packed to the brim, the crowds were back. The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one – perhaps with greater vigour.

We are Mumbaikers and we live like brothers in times like this. So, do not dare to threaten us with your crackers. The spirit of Mumbai is very strong and cannot be harmed.

Please forward this to others. You never know, by chance it may come to hands of a terrorist in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq and he can then read this message which is specially meant for him!!!

With Love,
From the people of Mumbai (Bombay)

Within just two weeks another tragedy has hit Mumbai.

After heavy rains last week that brought Mumbai to a standstill and we were just resuming life as normal we faced riots yesterday when the Shiv Sena went out on a rampage shutting shops and pelting stones and burning buses all over Mumbai and Maharashtra.

And this evening the Mumbai was rocked by eight serial blasts at Borivili (two), Khar, Meera Road, Matunga, Jogeshwari, Bhayander railway stations and on the Khar-Santacruz subway.

Read more about the situation from IBNLive.

This isn’t the first time Mumbai has been rocked by blasts. Everyone remembers the 1993 bomb blasts as well as many others that have occured since then.

Folks at my place are safe. Mom reached home an hour before the blasts and I don’t take the trains.
Couldn’t get through to home or vice versa because all the cellphone and landline networks were all jammed. And the horrible traffic (made worse by the sorry state of the roads) resulted in me having a very worried journey home. Reached here by 8.30pm only.