A quick return to business as usual in city inured to horror

MUMBAI RESIDENTS travelled to work as normal yesterday, resigned but frustrated and angry over the serial bombings that tore through the heart of their city once more, killing 18 people and injuring 130 others.

Most blamed an inept, corrupt, uncaring and unaccountable administration for the three bomb explosions in crowded places packed largely with poor migrants.

“The politicians should be bombed out of existence as they are the ones responsible for these recurring attacks,” jewellery dealer Ramesh Patel said.

“We have perforce become used to such violence. What else can we do but bear it?” he asked.

Much is made of the resilience of Mumbai’s estimated 20 million people, the majority of them poor, mostly rural migrants, thousands of whom arrive daily in the port city seeking a better life on its fabled “streets of gold”.

The majority of newcomers, however, sadly end up eking out wretched existences on city pavements, or worse, slums that disappear at high tide. Sadly, it is these poor migrants who have died also in the terrorist attacks that periodically strike the city.

India’s federal home minister P Chidambaram praised the “resolute response” of Mumbai residents yesterday as shops, businesses and street stalls, including those in close proximity to the bombed areas, reopened and commuter trains ran as always, jam-packed.

“We do not have the luxury to not go to work, even after such an attack,” taxi driver Begum Rizwana said. “Otherwise our families will starve.”

“People in this city have become used to such attacks and violence,” said Omkar Nadekar, a dealer in cooking utensils whose shop is less than 50 metres from where the bomb exploded in south Bombay’s leafy middle-class Dadar suburb.

The daily wage earners have to earn their livelihood. It’s a tough, ruthless place, he added.

For others, like Babu Rangraj, who carried six bodies to the morgue in a tarpaulin ripped off a temporary shelter and an equal number of injured in a handcart in blinding rain from the opulent Opera House area in downtown Mumbai, such attacks had become “commonplace” in the city.

“We have got used to them. Dealing with their aftermath is like following a drill to try and save lives,” he said.

The 30-year-old had reacted similarly when Mumbai’s commuter trains were bombed in 2006, killing more than 180 commuters.

Others said the repeated attacks had greatly desensitised people. “Everyone calls up their family and friends to check if they are safe and once this is done people forget about the victims,” shopkeeper Mohammad Khambati admitted. “The killers leave us with nothing else to do.”