Monday 1st December 2008

"I knew her well," says my editor. "we used to play Scrabble all the time." He's talking about Sabina Saikia, the Times of India editor who was killed in the Taj this week. She'd been trapped underneath her bed in her hotel room, in one of the first floors to be set on fire. Several people, including her husband and our editor, had been frantically texting her over a number of days, but any signal from her phone, according to detectors, was cut off after 24 hours. She was found dead in the hotel sweep after the siege had ended.

Before I can say I'm sorry, and before he can even take another breath, he asks me the reason I really came to see him. I can't, after all, have knocked on his door for idle chitchat. I can't help but feel, as someone slips a china cup of coffee on the table in front of me, that editor is strangely stoical about the situation. The Times of India ran a humble obituary for Saikia, several headlines down. But in the office, the buzz does not subside. I couldn't help but feel that if the same had happened to a British or American journalist, a headline would be run, a candlelit vigil organised. Like Daniel Pearl, perhaps a movie would be made, starring Angleina Jolie (nationality cunningly disguised of course).

It's a common assumption in the West that India doesn't really care about death. Death in India is sati, or sinking people in the Ganges. They're used to death, more of it happens there. One child dies, another is born. The New York Times today reported that more Indians have died in terrorist attacks since January 2004 than in any other country except Iraq. Quantities of Indians can die before it becomes news, but take a small number of Westerners, and it's straight to the top of the headlines. In Mumbai, 174 people were killed: 27 of these were foreigners. It's hard to believe that without that 27, coverage would have been so intensive. It doesn't just happen in India; over 400 Nigerians massacred over the weekend in clashes between Muslims and Christians have barely scraped column inches.

"I remember being in New York during 9/11," says a friend of ours over a bottle of red wine in one of the swankier eateries of Delhi. "Everyone was out on the streets crying. Just on the streets. Crying." She sniffs a little. "That would never happen here." Indeed, if footage from the last few days can be considered typical, Indians were out on the streets, and on rooftops, watching in curiosity and incredulity.

But India does mourn it's dead. Women weep for their children, men for their wives, mothers for their sons. Scratch an Indian and he or she bleeds like any other human being. Outside every cemetary in Delhi, street wallahs do a roaring trade in floral tributes; they can be seen on the back of motorcycles, and for sale in every local market. India may not ululate at funerals, its newscasters may not cry on live television, it may not take out full page advertisements in newspapers like firms did after 7/7. But the dead are not forgotten.

Some grieve through anger. Sitting on the balcony of a pseudo-diner in Delhi's Khan Market this lunchtime, three Punjabi men sit smoking cigarettes, vapour trails winding their way around their turbans. "It's Pakistan," they say. "Those Pakistanis. They'll hound them out and shoot them. Hopefully."

"It's our own fault," declares a woman in a bar in the trendy district of Defence Colony. "How could the navy miss this? How could we take 60 hours to stop a siege? We must be asamed of ourselves in front of the world. Not all those people needed to die."

The US Embassy has circulated an email warning American nationals across the country that riots could take place, and could potentially target Westerners.

But where anger manifests itself on the streets, behind closed doors, tears fall. The Times of India today published an article advising its readers on how to deal with death. When advising how to reach out to friends a doctor states, "it is important for people around them to ensure they do not fall into a depression." In the West, depression is an expected part of mourning. Depression comes from believing that, being trapped in an impossible present, there is no worthwhile future. The article suggests it is important to move on; not out of callousness, but out of hope.

India is mourning. But yesterday, Leopold's Cafe, only two days ago riddled with bullets, reopened, leaving so short a period of mourning it would be a source of outcry in London or New York. But in Mumbai, so many customers poured into the cafe, ordering beers, cokes and chow mein, that it had to close early.

But my editor is not here to talk about the distant, or recent past. "What are you going to do when you get home?" He says, "You must have a plan?" I tell him I'm planning to write a book and his grey eyes flash. He rubs his hands together. "Good," he says, "good. This is a very good time to be writing a book about India." I am about to tell him I wasn't planning to write about India at all. But perhaps, given the fact that its future can only get better, it wouldn't be a bad idea at all.