It was about two months ago that my wife and I were in the Trident hotel in Mumbai when the terrorists struck and we were held hostage for two days in our room. We were finally rescued on Friday, November 28 and discovered the mayhem and murder outside our doors that had taken place-- over 31 people had been killed by the terrorists including 11 staff of the hotel. We were glad to return to our placid life in the US but when an opportunity came in January this year to return to India we grabbed at it. All our family and friends were aghast warning us of the uncertain situation in the country with the possibility of more such incidents and the possibility of war with Pakistan. When we said that during this trip we would be in Mumbai for a few days, our daughter and son were furious that we would even consider such a foolish journey and there were rumblings and murmuring from my daughter who was visiting us from her perch in New York which included words such as " insane", " old age"," I give up " etc. I thought it wise not to mention that it was our plan to return to our room in the Trident hotel where we had survived the crisis ! Why did we want to return to the Trident hotel and to our room ? I tried to explain this to my children but it is always difficult to explain the rationale of your actions to your children- so it was when they were young and so it remains even though they are grown up and busy with their own lives. On the other hand, parents tend to underestimate the intensity of passion and emotion of their young.
When the invitation came to return to Mumbai for a series of seminars in january, truth be told, I hesitated a bit. And then I realized that this hesitation was exactly what the terrorists were seeking. The objective of the terrorists were clear- to create mayhem, disrupt the commercial life of India's premier city, strike terror in its inhabitants and force people to alter the tenor of their lives. We needed to respond to that both individually and collectively. As Burke had said two centuries ago "The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing". There were three reasons why we decided to return but the first was simple defiance. We refuse to be intimidated by terrorists and were damned if we would allow random jihadis to dictate the direction of our lives. So our journey back was a small and perhaps insignificant gesture to say that terrorists would not dictate our lives.
A second reason was gratitude.The staff in the hotel and various other people connected with the hotel had rallied to our aid during the seige and we needed to thank them. The hotel staff in particular had been brave and couregous and considerate in looking after the residents. They merited all our gratitude. And we also wanted to stay in the hotel whose occupancy had dropped by 50% after the attack and was suffering a lack of guests. Of course going back to our old room was simply a gesture !
And thirdly, it was and is a beautiful hotel and our room overlooked the peaceful bay and we were pampered by the staff on our return. They had cleaned up the entire floor and we were the sole occupants of the floor during our stay !
There was massive secuirity around the hotel including a permenent army contingent on duty outside and we never felt safer.
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