Years of mourning the losses in Mumbai

Mumbai: It's hard to believe that five years have passed since terrorists attacked Mumbai on Nov. 26, 2008, the date everyone in India knows as 26/11. More than 160 people were killed. Two of the victims were my cousin Reshma Parekh and her husband, Sunil. They were gunned down as they waited for a table at Tiffin restaurant in the Oberoi Hotel. They died within hours of the attackers' arrival in the city, but their deaths were not confirmed until the hotel was finally wrested from the gunmen's control two days later.

I was living in New York when news of the attack arrived on Thanksgiving morning. I snatched time away from preparing the holiday meal to watch live television coverage as the attack unfolded. Reporters were standing in front of the landmark Taj Mahal hotel, showing the raging fire, the billowing smoke, guests on window ledges using bedsheets to escape.

I was already feeling sick with a sense of 9/11 deja vu when I got a call from an aunt in Mumbai. Reshma and Sunil were in the Oberoi. There'd been no news.

A family friend's daughter who was trapped in the Taj Mahal but finally managed to escape said there were no security forces at the back of the hotel. When she and a handful of other hotel guests emerged into the alley after eluding the gunmen inside, they were stunned to find themselves perfectly alone, not a policeman in sight. They walked until they found a taxi, and made their way home. When she told me about her experience a year later, her voice shook with rage.

There has been much analysis of the attack over the course of the past five years. How could such an attack have happened? What needs to be done to make sure it never happens again?

The video of the lone fire truck dwarfed by the raging inferno in the Taj hotel; the video of the Mumbai policemen cowering behind a pillar with their old Lee-Enfield rifles as a couple of young men with machine guns rake bullets into helpless passengers inside the railway terminus; the horrifying audiotapes of the terrorists' handlers in Pakistan calmly ordering the assassination of this or that hostage - these terrible proofs of unpreparedness in the face of a well-calculated, media-savvy attack on India's business and entertainment capital have been examined over and over again.

In the complicated maelstrom of Pakistan's domestic politics and its strained relationship with India, the Pakistan-based masterminds of the 26/11 attack have not been brought to justice. The region remains a dangerous one, where alliances of necessity are fraught with mistrust. There were multiple intelligence alerts that an attack on Mumbai was in the works, and Indian intelligence, the CIA and the Mumbai police were aware of the warnings. Yet the city was unprepared.

Over the past five years, homegrown attacks - some by Muslim extremists but others by Hindu militants - have rocked India. India's cities remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The government of India, the state of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai all claim to have made great strides in improving security. They've invested in the coast guard. The police have better guns, interagency communication has improved, a special commando squad called Force One has been created and closed-circuit TV cameras are planned.

But Mumbai's roads are even more clogged than they were five years ago; the city's fire brigades don't always have enough water to put out building fires; and Mumbai police officers, who sometimes have to pay for fuel out of their own pockets, have been unable to respond to emergencies when they haven't filled their tanks.

A year ago, Ajmal Kasab, the only survivor among the 10 original attackers, was hanged. His execution brought no closure to me. My Indian family are Jains. The core belief of Jainism is ahimsa, avoiding harm to any living being. What comforts me is the spirit of ordinary Mumbaikars. The selfless actions of the staff at the Taj hotel became an instant legend. For three days, they tended guests hidden in conference rooms and guided others out, shielding them from bullets with their own bodies. The fact that there was no witch hunt against Muslims in a city that is no stranger to genocidal rampages created a foundation for healing.

The Taj Mahal and the Oberoi hotels have been repaired and reopened. Guests now have to pass through airport-type security to get inside. Tiffin restaurant has a new name. It's called Fenix, risen anew from the ashes of the attack.

My cousin's two daughters, orphaned on 26/11, have grown with the support and love of their extended family into vivacious teenagers. They are the best reason for a devastated family to carry on.

When I visit Mumbai, I see them and my aunt, Reshma's mother, who lost her only child. Photographs of Reshma and Sunil and the girls adorn the homes of the couple's families, who now bravely stand in for two people whose loss we still cannot comprehend.

Like the love of Mumbaikars for their confounding city, the love shared by our family was made fiercer by the terrorist attack. But no love should have to brave such senseless tragedy.