A Dark Night (Mumbai Attacks)

One evening, I was sitting on my balcony gazing at the stars and the moon thinking how they shower their light on us, guiding us even in the darkest period of our lives. That light gives us the hope that tomorrow, we will see the dawn of a new beginning, greater aspirations and fresher insights. A good thing about night and darkness is that they pass, but some things are far too horrible to be forgotten. They are the incidents that can never be erased from the memories. The Mumbai attacks on November 26, better known as 26/11 are one of those incidents that still haunt and terrify people. A period of four days so terrorising, that even now it gives goosebumps.

The life of Mumbaikars came to a standstill when supposedly, 10 men in inflatable speedboats came ashore at two locations at Colaba. They split up in groups and went to different positions in the diverse areas of Mumbai. One of the first sites to be attacked was a cafe ‘The Leopold Cafe’ in the evening. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Termius was also attacked when two gunmen started firing. Then, there was another attack reported at Cama hospital where the invaders approached to kill the patients. Fortunately, the wards were locked and the lives of the people were saved. There were many other places where people were assaulted and harassed and eventually killed. The assailants open fired at a number of places which ultimately took hundreds of lives, leaving everyone shocked and in great pain.

Four days of terror, panic, fear and dread, this raised a question on our security. For me, this was a dark night for our nation, for the citizens of it. Around 164 people were slaughtered, 600+ got non fatal injuries and countless were victims. The bombings, shootings, hostage crisis and siege shook people’s faith in humanity. They were in great disbelief that such thing happened to them. People were in total despair, knowing not what to do and how to react. They could see nothing, but corpses and rubble, sobbing and crying prevailed all over. The children were orphaned, the women were widowed, parents were left childless, families lost their only bread winners and elderly lost their only support.

I wonder why all this happened. Have we turned so inhuman, that we don’t even care about others lives? Have our hearts turned so devilish, that we can’t imagine anything but demolition? Have our souls become so rotten, that it can’t sense anything but stinks? We really need to ponder and look for those lovely feelings that lie within us, somewhere in the deserted part of our souls. I believe that each and every one of us has that soft corner in our hearts where innocence dwells, though at times, we hide that innocence and become insensitive. One can get the guts to kill others, only when he has murdered himself inside I suppose.

The city (Mumbai), even after going through a dark night never gave up on hopes, fought hard and showed great courage. This changes my perspective and helps me to realize that no darkness can stand the light. The light of positivity, the light of togetherness, the light of peace, and above all the light of love.