Hoardings put up by opportunistic political parties across Mumbai carry messages of solidarity along with pictures of Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte and Sandeep Unnikrishnan. They have now become part of legend, brave heroes of 26/11; in a grotesquely macabre and ironical way; the face of the attack; apart from pictures of captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab of course.
In the meanwhile, policemen who tried to defend the Taj with their World War 2 rifles, a 54-year-old policeman with a family who took bullets from Kasab so he could be captured alive at Girgaum Chowpatty, the Bihari policeman who risked life (and limb) to foil Kasab and his associate’s plan of taking over CST terminus have largely been forgotten. Everybody who fought the terror attack and lost their life, died for a cause. It would to foolish to call it martyrdom. This was a attack and our fallen heroes were all serving to defend the country and its terrified people from the idea of democracy and right to life. That the democracy had given them ill-equipped resources to defend itself is the greatest travesty and their ultimate deaths, a victim of circumstance.
I however feel that we have become obsessed of finding heroes to reassure ourselves that good people exist out there. This is partly because no political leadership was forthcoming during and after the attacks but we are being vainglorious if we believe that it is only the efforts of these Fab Four that saved Mumbai.
On my rounds to various hospitals across the city in the immediate aftermath of the attack, I found so many stories of bravery and heroism that I somehow felt these stories were getting dwarfed because the heroes themselves never thought about their selfless acts of saving lives.
Let me give you a few examples. A headwaiter took most of the guests from Tiffin restaurant at Oberoi to safely putting himself in the line of fire. Small time people like chaiwalas and clothiers were busy providing water and biscuits to the MARCOS and NSG commandos near Taj and Nariman House with grenades and bullets ricocheting a few feet from them.
I only wish we acknowledge the contributions of the entire city and salute this spirit of humanity that survived the 60-hour ordeal the city bore so tortuously. Saving a life is the most supreme act of compassion human beings can display. Does it bother you then that we give all the success only to four men on duty rather than all the others who took it upon themselves to perform this act of compassion purely as duty to humanity?
