Praying for friends at Trident

The praise for the staff at both the hotels Taj and Trident are well-deserved. They went about their duties amidst grave danger to their lives. This is completely believable.

Trident being my office marker hotel was my place of stay in many an official visit to Mumbai. I would invariably take the 7 pm flight from Kolkata and reach the hotel sometime around 1030 pm. It would be late for a lady to arrive at a hotel in any city but I was always assured that it would be a homecoming of sorts. I would be greeted by a cheery smile by Vincent who would then proceed to take my luggage to my room..most often in the 14th floor. Imran and Shazia would couteously check me in and Shazia would accompany me right into my room. This was the special care they take of single women travellers. It made me feel so safe and cherished.

Today after 48 hours of massacre I dont know whether my friends at Trident are alive. My prayers are with them. I only hope next time I go, I see their smiling faces all over again.

Cry, the beloved country

Its still not over.. The 48-hour ordeal has given way to a numbness that is unfamiliar. Police, security forces, media working round the clock. More than 155 dead and 327 injured and still counting....

I sit in front the TV like a piece of useless furniture. Yes exactly...a numbed, still piece of wood....I feel useless, incapacitated and debilitated and very angry. Angry at my own helplessness..at not being able to do anything by way of help when thousands of affected people are living out the worst hours of their life. A 2-year old Jewish baby who lost both parents, Sabina Sehgal Saikia, an upright lady journalist whose last chilling message to her husband was that the terrorists had entered her bathroom after which her phone could not be contacted...

I can speak for myself. Not for the politicians who are looking to play politics based on the common man's losses.

Great lives, slain heroes. Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, Sandeep Unnikrishnan...the brave men who went down fighting so that someone could go back home safe. What do we as Indians need to do now? See that these great lives have not gone in vain. How do we do that?

In the next few weeks there will only be questions...but we need answers. Desperately.

(Will update the blog, when I can think more coherently)

Returning home

I cant imagine its been so long...My last post was 8 months ago. Why did I not blog? Writer's block? No idea. I was lost for some time in the frivolous, intensely public world of Facebook.

But suddenly I felt this unexplainable urge to revisit my blogsite and talk to myself and connect with little old 'me'. The last 8 months have been mixed...good work, good appraisals, change in office leadership and a couple of visits to my second 'home' the UK.

I just got back from the UK last weekend after attending TechWorld 08 and got some interesting takeaways. Will write about that later.

I have just bought the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle and it comes highly recommended. Will read it and add some more posts.

So am I home? Of course...home is where the heart is..