Bang...bang...bang...the bombs went off
one by one in Zaveri Bazaar, Opera House and Dadar
Kabutarkhana. There was panic and pandemonium, people died, many
injured.........but Mumbai was back in its feet next morning. Even as
politicians touted the cliched 'Spirit of Mumbai' platitudes and
media went in unison condemning them, an important event illustrated
why terrorists will never be able to break the back of Mumbai, or
India in general, however hard they try, the state-sponsored types or
those by the non-state actors.
The DQ Week was holding the
annual awards in Mumbai on that date of explosion and as the pictures
in this issue shows, the turnout was hardly affected. And this
despite the fact that the majority of attendees at the function were
Gujaratis and the 3 bomb affected places too mostly had Gujarati
victims. It's the resilience of the IT trading community, that
symbolized that Mumbaikars do not get swayed by bomb attacks. They
might get bruised but it is difficult to batter their spirits. Opera
House bomb blast spot was close to Lamington Road, Mumbai's IT
trading hub, yet half of Lamington Road still turned up at our
function. It was more a symptomatic cocking a snook at the
terrorists.
By rough estimates, Lamington Road
generates about Rs 100 crore of business per day; and there was no
significant drop in that number the next morning. Some might say
Mumbaikars are immune to bomb blasts now (they had more than 10 in
the last 20 years), but I would rather quote what one eminent channel
partner told me, “Aap dariye mat, aap ke event mein sab pahoonch
jaayega, ye hamare bhi awards function hai, dhamake hum hotel mein
karenge, yeh darpook wale ka dhamake se hum dar nehi jaayenge”. I
don't care what politicians might say, but for me as long as this
vibrant IT channel community of Mumbai retain their dynamism, Mumbai
will always shine (despite its numerous problems) and India will
march ahead.