"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.
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday 28th November 2008
The siege continues. Back home, newspapers report as if it's all over. But this is a terrorist attack that goes on, and on, and on. Gunshots are still fired and people are still trapped in Nariman House. Like the men and women who dropped from the Twin Towers, bodies are slowly discovered, people in the Taj Hotel slowly crawl from under their beds and call home. Some are safe, some never were. Some are still trapped, trying to make their way out, climbing down bedsheets and ripped hotel curtains.
The Western newspapers proclaim another attack on the West. The British, American and Australian Foreign Offices call their people out of Mumbai. But there is no whisking away or warning for the vulnerable Indians, even though a hundred of their nationals are dead, compared to a handful of Westerners.
America and Britain are calling this battle their own. It must be Al-Quaeda, they say, because Westerners were rounded up and targeted. There is little mention of the fact that terrorist messages also voiced anger over the Muslims in Kashmir,
We have been voicing our fears about our own status here in the house in the last 48 hours. Our people have been targeted on the same soil on which we stand. But in the newsroom here today in Delhi, we realise that it's not our battle at all. We wonder why the newspaper isn't employing our services instead, since it's our countrymen who are dying. Until we realise that the story is not ours to own. The bodies being dragged out of hotels are Indian. The police who have dies in shoot outs are Indian. The troopers keeping seige are Indian; the people climbing out of the windows are mostly Indian, the people on the streets, cheering soldiers and voicing their disgust and anger, are Indian. The reporters here in the office, glued to the television screens, tapping away madly, anxiously speaking on their mobile phones which ring constantly, are Indian.
A senior reporter for our newspaper is somewhere in the Taj Hotel. No one has heard from her since she spoke to her husband, over 24 hours ago, telling him she was hiding under her bed, listening to a man, carrying a gun, creeping around her bathroom. Whether or not she is still there, nobody knows. Western reporters are standing outside, or are being flown in, staying at a safe distance.
The Taj Hotel has been painted as the playground for Western millionaires, a symbolic target for the Islamic Mujahedeen. But what has never been mentioned in the press is that the building was, in fact, built by an Indian entrepreneur, JN Tata, after he was thrown out of another five star hotel for being too 'native'. It was a monument to Indian pride and industry, not to Western affluence. A couple were celebrating their wedding with 200 guests, and two days ago found themselves, instead, cowering in their bathtub. There were far more Mumbaikers going ahead with their everyday lives on Wednesday than there were Westerners on holiday.
This is not a war on the West. It's too easy to forget that the 'West', in a geographical sense, doesn't exist anymore. The world economy exists as much in Bombay, in Dubai, in Beijing, as it does in London or New York. India is as much a target of hatred as downtown Manhattan. Bombay is not the stage for a battle between the West and the terrorists. It is the battle.
A CNN report today showed an American reporter, standing outside the Taj Hotel, amidst a group of angry, drunken Bombay men. They asked why she was here. They asked with hostility what others in India, watching their battle unfold, are asking with genuine curiosity.
The Western newspapers proclaim another attack on the West. The British, American and Australian Foreign Offices call their people out of Mumbai. But there is no whisking away or warning for the vulnerable Indians, even though a hundred of their nationals are dead, compared to a handful of Westerners.
America and Britain are calling this battle their own. It must be Al-Quaeda, they say, because Westerners were rounded up and targeted. There is little mention of the fact that terrorist messages also voiced anger over the Muslims in Kashmir,
We have been voicing our fears about our own status here in the house in the last 48 hours. Our people have been targeted on the same soil on which we stand. But in the newsroom here today in Delhi, we realise that it's not our battle at all. We wonder why the newspaper isn't employing our services instead, since it's our countrymen who are dying. Until we realise that the story is not ours to own. The bodies being dragged out of hotels are Indian. The police who have dies in shoot outs are Indian. The troopers keeping seige are Indian; the people climbing out of the windows are mostly Indian, the people on the streets, cheering soldiers and voicing their disgust and anger, are Indian. The reporters here in the office, glued to the television screens, tapping away madly, anxiously speaking on their mobile phones which ring constantly, are Indian.
A senior reporter for our newspaper is somewhere in the Taj Hotel. No one has heard from her since she spoke to her husband, over 24 hours ago, telling him she was hiding under her bed, listening to a man, carrying a gun, creeping around her bathroom. Whether or not she is still there, nobody knows. Western reporters are standing outside, or are being flown in, staying at a safe distance.
The Taj Hotel has been painted as the playground for Western millionaires, a symbolic target for the Islamic Mujahedeen. But what has never been mentioned in the press is that the building was, in fact, built by an Indian entrepreneur, JN Tata, after he was thrown out of another five star hotel for being too 'native'. It was a monument to Indian pride and industry, not to Western affluence. A couple were celebrating their wedding with 200 guests, and two days ago found themselves, instead, cowering in their bathtub. There were far more Mumbaikers going ahead with their everyday lives on Wednesday than there were Westerners on holiday.
This is not a war on the West. It's too easy to forget that the 'West', in a geographical sense, doesn't exist anymore. The world economy exists as much in Bombay, in Dubai, in Beijing, as it does in London or New York. India is as much a target of hatred as downtown Manhattan. Bombay is not the stage for a battle between the West and the terrorists. It is the battle.
A CNN report today showed an American reporter, standing outside the Taj Hotel, amidst a group of angry, drunken Bombay men. They asked why she was here. They asked with hostility what others in India, watching their battle unfold, are asking with genuine curiosity.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thursday 27th November 2008
Two weeks ago, I sat in the lobby of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. Elsa and I had spent the day wondering around the hotel and around nearby India Gateway, talking to foreigners about their reasons for coming to the city. Weary backpackers, their faces pasty with sunblock, walked in and out; a German man who who had just arrived in India told us about that morning's sightseeing tour, sporting his socks, sandals and ill-fitting khaki shorts, a tilak pasted on his perspiring forehead. We were out on the terrace observing the middle-aged couples fighting over the breadbasket, and single travellers nosing through novels, when a few members of the England Cricket Team, here for a press conference, giggled and waved at us. When we went over to wish them the best of luck they became coy, turning towards their tikka hamburgers.
Back in the lobby that evening, I waited for a friend to pick me up for a party. Perching on the edge of a couch, and trying to remain inconspicuous, I was joined by a gentle Arab-looking man who struck up conversation. He was originally from Baghdad, he said, from a fairly humble family, but had lived in India for decades before making some lucky investments in property. Now, he lives in Holland Park, his two sons American college-educated. He was staring around the lobby of the Taj concernedly, craning to look behind the huge display of oriental lilies that scraped the gold mosaic-ed ceiling. He was looking for a man, he said, that he hadn't seen for forty years; his old housekeeper when he lived in India. His earnest eyes opened wide. He was rich now, he said, and laughed. After he'd left his service, he studied for an engineering degree and now had a business of his own, a family, and two grown up children. His life had completely changed! And now, they were both in Bombay on the same day, the master and his former-servant-made-good. They were going to meet, in the lobby of the Taj Mahal Hotel, at 6 o'clock. They had their whole lives to catch up on. My ride came, I wished him the best, and waved goodbye.
As I write, the Indian Army are in the last stages of a siege in the very same lobby. Less than 24 hours ago, armed gunmen burst in, looking for Americans, English, Jews and failing that, any foreigners, shooting indiscriminately and throwing grenades. Screams filled the air, and the smell of dust and burning, the sight of falling golden plaster, the sound of smashed glass. People hung out of upper windows, frantically calling on their mobile phones to relatives and other people. Scores of people were trapped by gunmen, some of them allowed to escape when they could prove they were not British or American. Guests hid under the beds in their hotel rooms as gunmen lurked in their bathrooms. Some of these are still missing, including prominent Times of India journalist who called her husband several hours ago and has been silent since. Downstairs in the cellar, a 73 year-old British businessmen cowered in the cellar, on the telephone to the BBC, before being shot and killed. Up in the lobby, Indian staff were picked off arbitrarily. Blood covered stairs and hallways that for years had been polished to perfection.
A few hundred metres away on the bustling main bazaar, Leopold’s Café, a traveller’s haunt for decades, is pockmarked with bulletholes. Two weeks ago, we had sat in here, talking to giggling British backpackers about their days as extras on Bollywood sets, watching Italian women drinking their afternoons away with a yard of beer, ordering Indian, or Chinese food from the grumpy waiter. Today, it is empty, shattered, silent, shaken.
The terrorist attacks in Bombay today have shocked the world. But they have shocked India more. And a country that is struggling, and failing, to contain its own internal terrorist threat is powerless against an international one. It has not the capacities in security, nor intelligence.
Before we’d learned of today's recent attacks, we left the house early for a day trip to the Taj Mahal – the original one this time. The road to Agra is precarious – and not only for the upturned lorries shedding their loads. Roadside cafes are set up to overcharge tourists for weak coffee and rubbery toast, men at stoplights peddle miniature Taj Mahal snow domes, and every other car passenger rubbernecks to smile and wave at the foreigners in the back of the taxi. When we arrive, we are surprised to walk straight up to the designated tourist ticket desk, when all the guide books had told us we were bound to wait in line for hours. We pay our fee (at a 750-rupee premium for foreigners) and go to the security desk. A man there empties out of the contents of my bag and makes two piles, “allowed,” he said to my purse, “allowed,” to my sunglasses, “allowed, allowed, allowed” (novel, SLR camera, notepad) “not allowed” (novel number two, for some reason) “not allowed” (iPod earphones). The fact that a bomb is much more easily disguised as a five year old clunky camera than a tiny pair of earphones does not seem to cross his mind.
India has too nascent a security culture to deal with the burden of terrorism. Bombay is incredibly vulnerable: the perfect, if unexpected, target. A ship docking in the harbour, whether full of terrorists or fishermen, goes undetected and unnoticed, and a step onto the shore brings its passengers right into the heart of the city, its tourists and its bustle. A couple of hundred metres away is the Taj Palace Hotel, looming up to face the dock, guarded by two smiling footmen in turbans who point the way through the same wooden ‘metal detectors’ in place in every public building checkpoint, which beep no matter what the entrants are carrying. They're shuffled through regardless. At the entrance to the Bombay Taj Hotel, the guards even hold your handbag as you go through, not opening it to look, and passing it back to you with a bow. When confronted with armed terrorists, they would have been thrown down like ninepins. At the train station the same applies. Terrorists would not be noticed until blood smeared the entire floor. At Leopold’s customers were sitting targets through open windows, and police, if called, would have to shake the dust off their shoes before leaving the station, if they even answered the phone in the first place. Today, at the Taj Mahal in Agra, less than a day after tourists were targeted 1000 kilometres away, guards are just as nonchalant. If terrorists had come here instead, none of us would have stood a chance.
And so, today, as we walk through the‘metal detector’, we are lightly patted down by a female guard, and pushed out to view the giant white mausoleum. Wandering around the fountains, we take pictures for Indian couples on honeymoon. A gang of boys want their photos with us, and a gaggle of young women in saris laugh and wink at Karsten. The strange lack of white Westerners still hasn’t occurred to us. We walk around, squinting in the sunlight reflected from all angles off the white stone. A gang of Muslim schoolkids surround us “Handsome! Handsome!” they shout at Eva. “Pretty! Pretty!” they chirrup at me. Eva looks put out. “Howayu? Howayu?” waves a toddler, prompted by her father. The reception we get as Western Tourists is, as usual, a mixture of curiousity and ridicule, treatment that’s both offputting and enjoyable at the same time.
Then, the moment comes: a call from home, and we realise what has happened. Bombay is in tatters, people are dead, terrorists are involved. And Westerners are the targets. We are practically the only white faces, and every face, Indian, Muslim, for a moment, becomes a menace. The innocent attention we arouse becomes something frightening, and the lack of security is no longer a joke. Our vulnerability is exposed.
Only a handful of Westerners were killed in the attacks in Bombay, compared to a hundred Indians. We are no less objects of hatred to terrorist groups here than we are at home. But India has not the means to deal with the threat, or the actualisation, of terror.
And no one is more afraid in this instance than Indians, who over the last five years have suffered bombings and shootings that have killed hundreds, if not thousands of people. Overtures to the West have resulted in no assistance at all.
Today, we feel that fear for the first time. Suddenly, we are the targets, and we understand what it is like to feel vulnerable with no one to come to our aid. Ordinary people, meeting long-lost friends, swimming in the pool, arguing over dinner, backpacking on their gap years are objects of hatred. Ordinary Indians have lived with this same threat for years. Now that perhaps Westerners as well as Indians have become casualties, the West may offer intelligence, training and technology. Doormen in turbans may be replaced by trained officers, and makeshift wooden arches by something more technologically sensible. Perhaps the international community, finally understanding India’s terror, will listen to its plea.
Back in the lobby that evening, I waited for a friend to pick me up for a party. Perching on the edge of a couch, and trying to remain inconspicuous, I was joined by a gentle Arab-looking man who struck up conversation. He was originally from Baghdad, he said, from a fairly humble family, but had lived in India for decades before making some lucky investments in property. Now, he lives in Holland Park, his two sons American college-educated. He was staring around the lobby of the Taj concernedly, craning to look behind the huge display of oriental lilies that scraped the gold mosaic-ed ceiling. He was looking for a man, he said, that he hadn't seen for forty years; his old housekeeper when he lived in India. His earnest eyes opened wide. He was rich now, he said, and laughed. After he'd left his service, he studied for an engineering degree and now had a business of his own, a family, and two grown up children. His life had completely changed! And now, they were both in Bombay on the same day, the master and his former-servant-made-good. They were going to meet, in the lobby of the Taj Mahal Hotel, at 6 o'clock. They had their whole lives to catch up on. My ride came, I wished him the best, and waved goodbye.
As I write, the Indian Army are in the last stages of a siege in the very same lobby. Less than 24 hours ago, armed gunmen burst in, looking for Americans, English, Jews and failing that, any foreigners, shooting indiscriminately and throwing grenades. Screams filled the air, and the smell of dust and burning, the sight of falling golden plaster, the sound of smashed glass. People hung out of upper windows, frantically calling on their mobile phones to relatives and other people. Scores of people were trapped by gunmen, some of them allowed to escape when they could prove they were not British or American. Guests hid under the beds in their hotel rooms as gunmen lurked in their bathrooms. Some of these are still missing, including prominent Times of India journalist who called her husband several hours ago and has been silent since. Downstairs in the cellar, a 73 year-old British businessmen cowered in the cellar, on the telephone to the BBC, before being shot and killed. Up in the lobby, Indian staff were picked off arbitrarily. Blood covered stairs and hallways that for years had been polished to perfection.
A few hundred metres away on the bustling main bazaar, Leopold’s Café, a traveller’s haunt for decades, is pockmarked with bulletholes. Two weeks ago, we had sat in here, talking to giggling British backpackers about their days as extras on Bollywood sets, watching Italian women drinking their afternoons away with a yard of beer, ordering Indian, or Chinese food from the grumpy waiter. Today, it is empty, shattered, silent, shaken.
The terrorist attacks in Bombay today have shocked the world. But they have shocked India more. And a country that is struggling, and failing, to contain its own internal terrorist threat is powerless against an international one. It has not the capacities in security, nor intelligence.
Before we’d learned of today's recent attacks, we left the house early for a day trip to the Taj Mahal – the original one this time. The road to Agra is precarious – and not only for the upturned lorries shedding their loads. Roadside cafes are set up to overcharge tourists for weak coffee and rubbery toast, men at stoplights peddle miniature Taj Mahal snow domes, and every other car passenger rubbernecks to smile and wave at the foreigners in the back of the taxi. When we arrive, we are surprised to walk straight up to the designated tourist ticket desk, when all the guide books had told us we were bound to wait in line for hours. We pay our fee (at a 750-rupee premium for foreigners) and go to the security desk. A man there empties out of the contents of my bag and makes two piles, “allowed,” he said to my purse, “allowed,” to my sunglasses, “allowed, allowed, allowed” (novel, SLR camera, notepad) “not allowed” (novel number two, for some reason) “not allowed” (iPod earphones). The fact that a bomb is much more easily disguised as a five year old clunky camera than a tiny pair of earphones does not seem to cross his mind.
India has too nascent a security culture to deal with the burden of terrorism. Bombay is incredibly vulnerable: the perfect, if unexpected, target. A ship docking in the harbour, whether full of terrorists or fishermen, goes undetected and unnoticed, and a step onto the shore brings its passengers right into the heart of the city, its tourists and its bustle. A couple of hundred metres away is the Taj Palace Hotel, looming up to face the dock, guarded by two smiling footmen in turbans who point the way through the same wooden ‘metal detectors’ in place in every public building checkpoint, which beep no matter what the entrants are carrying. They're shuffled through regardless. At the entrance to the Bombay Taj Hotel, the guards even hold your handbag as you go through, not opening it to look, and passing it back to you with a bow. When confronted with armed terrorists, they would have been thrown down like ninepins. At the train station the same applies. Terrorists would not be noticed until blood smeared the entire floor. At Leopold’s customers were sitting targets through open windows, and police, if called, would have to shake the dust off their shoes before leaving the station, if they even answered the phone in the first place. Today, at the Taj Mahal in Agra, less than a day after tourists were targeted 1000 kilometres away, guards are just as nonchalant. If terrorists had come here instead, none of us would have stood a chance.
And so, today, as we walk through the‘metal detector’, we are lightly patted down by a female guard, and pushed out to view the giant white mausoleum. Wandering around the fountains, we take pictures for Indian couples on honeymoon. A gang of boys want their photos with us, and a gaggle of young women in saris laugh and wink at Karsten. The strange lack of white Westerners still hasn’t occurred to us. We walk around, squinting in the sunlight reflected from all angles off the white stone. A gang of Muslim schoolkids surround us “Handsome! Handsome!” they shout at Eva. “Pretty! Pretty!” they chirrup at me. Eva looks put out. “Howayu? Howayu?” waves a toddler, prompted by her father. The reception we get as Western Tourists is, as usual, a mixture of curiousity and ridicule, treatment that’s both offputting and enjoyable at the same time.
Then, the moment comes: a call from home, and we realise what has happened. Bombay is in tatters, people are dead, terrorists are involved. And Westerners are the targets. We are practically the only white faces, and every face, Indian, Muslim, for a moment, becomes a menace. The innocent attention we arouse becomes something frightening, and the lack of security is no longer a joke. Our vulnerability is exposed.
Only a handful of Westerners were killed in the attacks in Bombay, compared to a hundred Indians. We are no less objects of hatred to terrorist groups here than we are at home. But India has not the means to deal with the threat, or the actualisation, of terror.
And no one is more afraid in this instance than Indians, who over the last five years have suffered bombings and shootings that have killed hundreds, if not thousands of people. Overtures to the West have resulted in no assistance at all.
Today, we feel that fear for the first time. Suddenly, we are the targets, and we understand what it is like to feel vulnerable with no one to come to our aid. Ordinary people, meeting long-lost friends, swimming in the pool, arguing over dinner, backpacking on their gap years are objects of hatred. Ordinary Indians have lived with this same threat for years. Now that perhaps Westerners as well as Indians have become casualties, the West may offer intelligence, training and technology. Doormen in turbans may be replaced by trained officers, and makeshift wooden arches by something more technologically sensible. Perhaps the international community, finally understanding India’s terror, will listen to its plea.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Friday, October 31st 2008
"What is this Halloween about?" asks the broadband editor who works behind me. She is asking one of my American colleagues, well-versed in all things 'happy holiday', to write her blog for her. She's amused that Sarah Palin has been used as a ghoul, hung on the side of houses, to ward off evil spirits. "Halloween is a bit like the Day of The Dead," says Elsa, scrabbling around for Wikipedia. There's still no sign of recognition from the editor. "When the dead spirits come to life and you, well, I guess you frighten them off by looking scary yourself." It really is, I think, the most non-nonsensical holiday in the calendar.
Until the last couple of years, Halloween was barely a puff of smoke in Delhi. When there's not much disposable income for the average household, there's not a huge market for plastic bats, devil's forks and sexy witch outfits. But this year, the parties are more than just ex-pat affairs in gated houses. Young well-travelled Indians are bringing home the American greetings card traditions; dressing as the Mask of Zorro, passing around candy and playing Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' at full volume. There's a bar in Connaught Place offering, for a few thousand rupees, butler service, your own personal pole-dancer, access to a champagne bar, and free vodka, whiskey and spicy nibbles all night. One restaurant is charging between 3,000 and 5,000 rupees for entry to their dining room decked out with jack o'lanterns and masks. Another is promising to "switch off the lights every 10 minutes and give our guests a scary dance". I wonder if they decorate the shrine to Ganesh in fake cobwebs.
Tonight, we leave the Indian Halloween scene to find its feet and head out to an expat party on the edge of town. The motley crew of party-goers are all on the roof, overlooking out over the flat buildings of the city as the last bursts of Diwali fireworks pop around them. The sound of Bucks Fizz's 'Making your mind up' winds its way through the air vent, and empty plastic cups are strewn all around. A laundry basket with an American accent berates me for mistaking him for a shopping trolley. A shaolin monk brings up more whiskey from downstairs. A woman who can best be described as a negative copy of Amy Winehouse struts her stilettoed walk towards a spaceman. In the midst of it all, a man dressed in a suit and turban, and a woman in a red sari stand together and stare around in confusion. I realise that they're not actually in costume.No one knows who invited them.
There certainly are many indicators here that Halloween and India are a rather incongruous mix. Most of the party guests here are aid workers, teachers or diplomats. Even in drag, there's no way to escape India. A German vampire laments the fact that the government will not allow Indian children to attend embassy schools, even though the teaching is incomparably better than anything they would get from state-sponsored education. A banyan tree with a knitted octopus on his shoulder tells me that several species of indigenous Indian tree are soon to die out with the rapid increase in floods. A sheriff from Massachusetts sings the praises of the International Baccalaureate. A shirtless cowboy in a long blonde wig talks concernedly about the fact that TB in India is growing at a prolific rate. It's the biggest-killing disease in the country by far. He laments that the American Government are cutting funds to USAID in India (where he works) when the same amount of money could be used to save more lives here than in most other countries. "But America doesn't care about India," he says, crunching his beer can in his fist. In India, there are some evil spirits which can't be warded away with a candle and a pumpkin.
But while the expats cannot hide their fears behind a ghoulish mask, the novelty is still fresh for the young Indian revellers in the centre of town.And perhaps for them, it can still provide an escape from the real fears which exist for them, day to day. The newspapers still wrestle with their consciences here, musing on whether Halloween is just a Western trend being poularised to make money. But there are also non-economic theories. With 12 bomb blasts ripping through Assam two days ago, killing over 70 civilians, some plastic terror can only come as a relief. "In these modern times," The Times of India reported today, "it just feels good to dress up as a scary character and not, even for a little while, be scared yourself."
Until the last couple of years, Halloween was barely a puff of smoke in Delhi. When there's not much disposable income for the average household, there's not a huge market for plastic bats, devil's forks and sexy witch outfits. But this year, the parties are more than just ex-pat affairs in gated houses. Young well-travelled Indians are bringing home the American greetings card traditions; dressing as the Mask of Zorro, passing around candy and playing Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' at full volume. There's a bar in Connaught Place offering, for a few thousand rupees, butler service, your own personal pole-dancer, access to a champagne bar, and free vodka, whiskey and spicy nibbles all night. One restaurant is charging between 3,000 and 5,000 rupees for entry to their dining room decked out with jack o'lanterns and masks. Another is promising to "switch off the lights every 10 minutes and give our guests a scary dance". I wonder if they decorate the shrine to Ganesh in fake cobwebs.
Tonight, we leave the Indian Halloween scene to find its feet and head out to an expat party on the edge of town. The motley crew of party-goers are all on the roof, overlooking out over the flat buildings of the city as the last bursts of Diwali fireworks pop around them. The sound of Bucks Fizz's 'Making your mind up' winds its way through the air vent, and empty plastic cups are strewn all around. A laundry basket with an American accent berates me for mistaking him for a shopping trolley. A shaolin monk brings up more whiskey from downstairs. A woman who can best be described as a negative copy of Amy Winehouse struts her stilettoed walk towards a spaceman. In the midst of it all, a man dressed in a suit and turban, and a woman in a red sari stand together and stare around in confusion. I realise that they're not actually in costume.No one knows who invited them.
There certainly are many indicators here that Halloween and India are a rather incongruous mix. Most of the party guests here are aid workers, teachers or diplomats. Even in drag, there's no way to escape India. A German vampire laments the fact that the government will not allow Indian children to attend embassy schools, even though the teaching is incomparably better than anything they would get from state-sponsored education. A banyan tree with a knitted octopus on his shoulder tells me that several species of indigenous Indian tree are soon to die out with the rapid increase in floods. A sheriff from Massachusetts sings the praises of the International Baccalaureate. A shirtless cowboy in a long blonde wig talks concernedly about the fact that TB in India is growing at a prolific rate. It's the biggest-killing disease in the country by far. He laments that the American Government are cutting funds to USAID in India (where he works) when the same amount of money could be used to save more lives here than in most other countries. "But America doesn't care about India," he says, crunching his beer can in his fist. In India, there are some evil spirits which can't be warded away with a candle and a pumpkin.
But while the expats cannot hide their fears behind a ghoulish mask, the novelty is still fresh for the young Indian revellers in the centre of town.And perhaps for them, it can still provide an escape from the real fears which exist for them, day to day. The newspapers still wrestle with their consciences here, musing on whether Halloween is just a Western trend being poularised to make money. But there are also non-economic theories. With 12 bomb blasts ripping through Assam two days ago, killing over 70 civilians, some plastic terror can only come as a relief. "In these modern times," The Times of India reported today, "it just feels good to dress up as a scary character and not, even for a little while, be scared yourself."
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Terrorism and Diwali
A short post I've written for the Comment Factory on the terrorist situation around Diwali. Click here
Friday, October 10, 2008
Tuesday 7th October 2008
I am the Anglo-Saxon terrorist.
The security guard looked at my gate pass suspiciously. I am white (starlingly so, I realise among these Indian faces), blonde, and for some reason I come dressed in a salwar kameez. He is dressed in a crisp blue shirt with a gold logo on the lapel, and wears his hat straight on his head. He a slightly sadistic smirk lurks beneath his thick moustache. He jangles his keys on his belt – they’re on a huge metal ring, like those on a cartoon jailer. He sits me down kneecap-to-kneecap with his junior officer, who eyballs me intensely. Occasionally one will shoot me a sentence in Hindi, and it is all I can do to shrug and look confused. Perhaps they think this is one of my tactics. I wave to my Indian-skinned colleague Neilesh who is sitting on the other side of the room, though he’s sensible enough not to open his mouth and reveal his American identity. I’m not allowed to move. They’re clearly not convinced that I really know him. It’s quite possible that the Hindu fundamentalists have sent me as a mole to infiltrate the newspaper. It’s quite possible that I am the Anglo-Saxon terrorist.
Twenty minutes earlier, I had asked the same security guard to let me into the office I’d been designated the day before. He looked at me, and then looked at the door and gabbled something in Hindi. When I shook my head and shrugged he picked up the phone and called security downstairs. He asked the morning risers who were in the newsroom who I was. None of them had any idea. So here I am, pinned to the chair by the gaze of the junior security guard. I’m wishing my boss into the office as soon as possible. A young man comes round with the chai – he served me several times yesterday. He nods to me, but his ackowledgement doesn’t fly with the newsroom gestapo.
India has become a security-paranoid country. Metal detectors line the entrance to buildings and stations: ramshackle planks of wood nailed together with wires protruding from the corners. Officers take your names and sign you in and out from desks that are so makeshift they barely stand on four legs. Security hasn’t been part of India’s culture. But it is now.
India’s too busy fighting its own terrorists to bother about the world’s. Muslim mujahedeen have terrified marketplaces. Hindu nationalists attack Christian refugee camps. The Naxalists, an underground Marxist movement that has been growing over the past decade, has been fighting a guerilla war for years along the central belt of the country. Stories of rapes, bombings, riots and slaughters shout from every day’s front page, creating a white noise that is slowly reaching fever pitch. There’s an electricity of fear in the air that Delhiites tell me never existed before. A filler story which ran in the Times of India today said psychologists have found an increasing number of anxiety disorders they link to terrorism. It’s not the veracity of the story that matters here, of course, but the fact it made it to the paper in the first place perhaps says something. The atmosphere is something akin to the fear the IRA inflicted on England’s cities a decade ago: attacks are not strategic, but instead are visited on anyone who gets in the way.
I’m not an Anglo-Saxon terrorist. Instead, I’m the intern at the newspaper who no one’s quite sure about. And the fact that I am quarantined and guarded here at this desk space could perhaps only be considered a drill for when the real thing comes. My boss walks in the door, shouts in Hindi and points to the jangling keys hanging from the security guard’s belt. The guard smirks beneath his logo-ed hat as he unlocks the door - he’s had his fun with the intern.
“Ignore him,” says my boss, handing the confiscated gate pass back to me. I look at my ID photograph: I’m wearing a flower behind one ear and grinning like a cat. My boss just leans over and whispers, “he’s an asshole.”
The security guard looked at my gate pass suspiciously. I am white (starlingly so, I realise among these Indian faces), blonde, and for some reason I come dressed in a salwar kameez. He is dressed in a crisp blue shirt with a gold logo on the lapel, and wears his hat straight on his head. He a slightly sadistic smirk lurks beneath his thick moustache. He jangles his keys on his belt – they’re on a huge metal ring, like those on a cartoon jailer. He sits me down kneecap-to-kneecap with his junior officer, who eyballs me intensely. Occasionally one will shoot me a sentence in Hindi, and it is all I can do to shrug and look confused. Perhaps they think this is one of my tactics. I wave to my Indian-skinned colleague Neilesh who is sitting on the other side of the room, though he’s sensible enough not to open his mouth and reveal his American identity. I’m not allowed to move. They’re clearly not convinced that I really know him. It’s quite possible that the Hindu fundamentalists have sent me as a mole to infiltrate the newspaper. It’s quite possible that I am the Anglo-Saxon terrorist.
Twenty minutes earlier, I had asked the same security guard to let me into the office I’d been designated the day before. He looked at me, and then looked at the door and gabbled something in Hindi. When I shook my head and shrugged he picked up the phone and called security downstairs. He asked the morning risers who were in the newsroom who I was. None of them had any idea. So here I am, pinned to the chair by the gaze of the junior security guard. I’m wishing my boss into the office as soon as possible. A young man comes round with the chai – he served me several times yesterday. He nods to me, but his ackowledgement doesn’t fly with the newsroom gestapo.India has become a security-paranoid country. Metal detectors line the entrance to buildings and stations: ramshackle planks of wood nailed together with wires protruding from the corners. Officers take your names and sign you in and out from desks that are so makeshift they barely stand on four legs. Security hasn’t been part of India’s culture. But it is now.
India’s too busy fighting its own terrorists to bother about the world’s. Muslim mujahedeen have terrified marketplaces. Hindu nationalists attack Christian refugee camps. The Naxalists, an underground Marxist movement that has been growing over the past decade, has been fighting a guerilla war for years along the central belt of the country. Stories of rapes, bombings, riots and slaughters shout from every day’s front page, creating a white noise that is slowly reaching fever pitch. There’s an electricity of fear in the air that Delhiites tell me never existed before. A filler story which ran in the Times of India today said psychologists have found an increasing number of anxiety disorders they link to terrorism. It’s not the veracity of the story that matters here, of course, but the fact it made it to the paper in the first place perhaps says something. The atmosphere is something akin to the fear the IRA inflicted on England’s cities a decade ago: attacks are not strategic, but instead are visited on anyone who gets in the way.
I’m not an Anglo-Saxon terrorist. Instead, I’m the intern at the newspaper who no one’s quite sure about. And the fact that I am quarantined and guarded here at this desk space could perhaps only be considered a drill for when the real thing comes. My boss walks in the door, shouts in Hindi and points to the jangling keys hanging from the security guard’s belt. The guard smirks beneath his logo-ed hat as he unlocks the door - he’s had his fun with the intern.
“Ignore him,” says my boss, handing the confiscated gate pass back to me. I look at my ID photograph: I’m wearing a flower behind one ear and grinning like a cat. My boss just leans over and whispers, “he’s an asshole.”
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Wednesday 1st October 2008
The tuktuk tips us out sideways on to the street like a wheelbarrow. Sucked into the current of people streaming through the labyrinthine corridors of Chandni Chowk market, we have no choice but to be borne along with them.Everywhere is the sound of taxi horns, babies crying, dosas sizzling, and people peddling belts, shavers, pens, saris, babies’ clothes, sandals, beads, bindis. The air smells of hot fat and spice and urine and frankincense: as soon as one smell leaves our nostrils another rises to take its place. The tiny streets are covered in a grey-blue hue. Yellow light bounces out of the shops from sari glitter, the flash of chapatti pans, and tinsel. We turn our heads quickly enough to catch a glance at five women sitting on the floor of a shop, huge bright taffetas spread below them, choosing a bridal trousseau. Another glance at dogs ailing in the gutters (“In India, they’re either pregnant, or they’re dying,” quips my friend Neilesh). We jump out the way just in time to avoid being pulled under the wheels of a rickshaw, only a few inches narrower than the lane it is trying to navigate, ploughing its cargo of three young women through the mucky splendour of the streets. Everything is profane, and everything is sacred.
And yet nothing is ominous: Indian markets are not like African bazaars, with their dried up heads and grimacing skulls. Neither are they full of the hanging slimy corpses of poultry and small mammals, or the ground up tusks of exotic creatures like those in China. Everything here glitters, shines, sparkles; smells of the past and of hopes pressed to the ears of the gods.
Chandni Chowk is a slum, filled with treasures in tiny ramshackle niches. There are businesses that have been here for decades, carving their quiet reputation as the bookseller who sells this item best, or the tailor who is superior for that. A shopper’s method in the carnage is known only to them. The entire bazaar has the sensibility of a department store – every five minutes of our walk the theme of the shops seamlessly changes; from shoes to saris to ribbons to paper to calendars to electronics. And all dotted with dosas and lime soda stands, like shop cafes less strategically placed. Of course there are no arrows to departments, and heaven help you if you stop for a moment to orientate yourself. There are people of all kinds: mothers, babies. Tall men, tiny men, old men, boys. Each have their own errand and I feel guilt at the indulgence of simply watching. Here is human life, everyone armed with their own purpose as they elbow their way through the throng.
Last Saturday, in one such market in Delhi, two black-clad motorcycle riders, as much part of the mêlée as any other, dropped a square package in the road. A young boy, one of the many sitting among the buckets and boxes, ran to pick it up and return it. It exploded in his face, killing him instantly, and injuring dozens of passers by. Such bombs have been planted around markets and open spaces in India over the last five months, with increasing intensity. Most have been claimed by Islamic Mujaheleen, who want the rights of Muslims to be asserted fairly in Congress. And they have succeeded in terrifying Indians as they go about their way of life. They have only highlighted the fact that in a country known for its gordion knot of bureaucracy, there is one of the lowest police to civilian ratios in the world. India is a country that thrived on chaos and chance happenings, that amazed Western visitors with its ability to run adequately without digital precision, safety first, and a mechanised mindset. Now its beautiful spontaneity is being threatened by a new brand of chaos. It cannot be discovered, contained, or understood. It is not ‘Indian Mind’ and no one understands how to make it stop. It leaves the Congress Party government with two choices: either turn into a surveillance state, or let another party do it instead.
From the mayhem of the street, the new Delhi Metro springs up, as if to guide us with its steely, sterilised hand to the safety of an underground passage. The metro system here is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen. Its enormous shiny caverns run trains that are on time, never overcrowded, cheap (10p or so a ride) and, best of all, narrated by a plummy Brit who must have modelled her received pronunciation on the Queen’s Speech. It’s a symbol of India’s emergence as a first-world democracy, and is due to be finished in time for the city’s hosting of 2010 Commonweath Games. The tiny plastic token, which scans each passenger through the gates on the way in, and slots them to their exit, is the ultimate ticketless ticket, and the metro’s three lines link New Delhi Railway Station and the main bus station with the rest of the city.
But there is another feature to the Delhi Metro that indicates the direction in which India is headed. Before even reaching the gates, passengers walk through airport-style security: metal detectors, and x-rays for bags. If a commuter is unfortnate enough to bleep on their way through the arch (and it’s telling that many of Delhi’s commuters do not carry enough on their person to be detected), they will be whisked behind a screen and frisked. What happens in the market - chaotic, mad, India – cannot be surveilled, but that is old India. Here in subterrania, the enclosed is carefully scrutinised.
Or will be, one day. The female officer who was allotted to me gestured behind a screen emblazoned with an advertisement for Delhi’s miaow FM. Cocking her head sideways, and giggling like the new shopgirl on bra-fitting day, she touched me barely close enough to detect a kalashnikov rammed up my tunic. Protocol, it seems, is just that.
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