Saturday, November 29, 2008

Life is back to normal

I just returned from spending the last 4 hours outside in my neighborhood, Bandra West. I picked up some water from a small grocery store (there is no such thing as a big grocery store here), some eggs from the corner kiosk, ate an ice cream cone and a snack at the KFC while overlooking a busy street corner from the second floor, had a Thai foot massage, bought a pair of flip flops to wear in the house, some beautiful pashmina shawls from Kasmir from a sari store and a couple of bags from a street vendor, and window shopped (oh...the bedspreads here are beautiful!). There are lots of people shopping, street vendors are selling their sandals and clothing, sellers are hawking food, autorickshaws clogging the streets.....life is normal in Mumbai.

The ordeal is finally over and the news stations are now speculating on how the terrorists got away with wreaking havoc in this major city. I'm sure the speculation and the accusations will go on for the coming days. I only hope that security gets tightened here. I still can't believe that the National Security Guard (equivalent to the U.S. Special Forces unit I think) doesn't have a unit stationed in Mumbai. Clearly the police force isn't trained to contront terrorists ... at least one of their cars were stolen by the terrorists!

I learned that the guards stationed at hotels and businesses here aren't even armed! In contrast, the guards in terrorist threatened countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Colombia are heavily armed. I like Mumbai enough to hope that another attack doesn't occur again. Let's hope the government will learn from this event and put stronger security measures in place.

I'm not afraid to be on the streets. I don't plan on cutting this trip short and have not been asked to do so. I still have 2 more weeks of enjoying life in India and continue blogging.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad that things are for the most part, back to normal. I hope you have tons of fun during the rest of your stay! Oh, I'll want to see pictures of those pashminas you bought. ;)