November 2008

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On September 23rd, 1990, I set foot in Mumbai (then Bombay) for my postgraduate training in General Surgery. Almost instantly, I fell in love with a vibrant, energetic and cosmopolitan metropolis that would be my home for the next 3 years.

I operated at the G.T.hospital and Lady Cama, ogled girls at St.Xavier’s college, watched movies at the Metro and walked to V.T. station to use the public phone booths to call back home.

The first time I visited the Taj Mahal hotel is vivid in my memory. Along with my registrar and co-houseman, I entered the restaurant (it might have been the Kandahar) to share a pot of Kona coffee – at 3:30 a.m.

After that, we took a long, leisurely walk along Marine Drive, to return to the hospital at the crack of dawn… only to be back in the wards, treating patients at 9:00 a.m.

Fun days. Our hearts were young and free.

Today, those same places evoke deep sadness, shared loss and helpless, undirected anger.

Because this is where terror struck Mumbai on Wednesday.

Whenever I came back to Chennai (then Madras), I would regale my med school classmates with stories about life in Bombay. Contrasted against the conservative, quiet and lethargic way things were in Chennai, the metro that was called India’s New York was rocket-fast.

I told them about how women undergrads would walk back from St.George’s hospital to their hostel at Sir J.J.Hospital – at 2:00 a.m., with no fear or danger… because Bombay never sleeps!

We laughed about incidents at Leopold’s cafe, our favorite week-end dining out spot… and at how one of our friends sneaked into the popular Argee’s nightclub.

I raved about the food, decor and ambience at the Oberoi roof-top restaurant (where we had dinner more than once, at conferences sponsored by pharmacuetical firms).

And then, on March 12th, 1993, our world changed.

The tragedy that devastated Bombay did more than immediate damage. It ripped the exquisite fabric of the “city of a wink and a nod”, and turned it into a suspicious, nervous and hesitant flashpoint.

I remember being stopped by a policeman – again, when we were returning from the Taj after coffee – and having our cab checked… and this was at 9:30 p.m. No, the streets were off-limits after midnight, if not earlier.

Gone were the carefree, happy memories of just 2 years earlier. Grim memories remained – of curfew, armed military vehicles patrolling the narrow bylanes of Byculla, and the prime ministerial convoy guarded by famed black-cat commandos visiting our hospital to commisserate with the wounded, caught in the cross-fire of a religious-ideological war.

Bombay was never the same for me. In September 1993, I returned back home, some of the best memories of my life stored away forever in my mind… to be pulled out, cherished and enjoyed over and over again.

On November 26th, 2008 the events that rocked Mumbai tapped into another memory-bank – one that I have not visited often, and would prefer to never dig into again. The dark, deadly, dreadful period around what were then called ‘Bombay Blasts’.

Has nothing changed?

Have we learned no lessons?

How long will the madness last?

And will the Bombay of pre-1993 ever come back again?

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