Mumbai's nightmare: a terror attack on tourism (on innocents abroad - and at home)

Terry and I stayed at the majestic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai on a trip to India about six years ago or so. We ate dinner at the Indian restaurant that was the scene of a seige by terrorists this week; the restaurant whose chef was one of the first to get shot. And after a sweaty day's sightseeing in the city, we'd cool off with a gin and tonic on the antique swing seat on the elegant terrace by the swimming pool, where this week guests stepped over corpses as they attempted to escape. I spent hours browsing in the hotel's excellent bookshop and took home a dozen or so novels by Indian writers - they were a bargain. If the destruction described in this story in the UK's Telegraph newspaper is indicative of the overall damage to the hotel, the bookshop is probably burnt out. We had lunch at the Oberoi another day, in its chic minimalist Italian restaurant, and I shopped myself silly at the shops there too - all the scene of another bloody rampage. At the Taj Mahal we stayed in the modern tower, as there'd been a mix up with our bookings and all the antique rooms were full, however, we nevertheless got a peek at one and they were as sumptuous as they looked on the hotel website. Having stayed and eaten at the hotels and explored the city streets where this week's horrific attacks took place has made it all the more real to me. Sure I'd been to the World Trade Centre before 9/11, but that was an attack on the USA's financial heart, a symbol of Western capitalism, of greed, of excess. It came as no surprise. That's not to downgrade that tragic event in any way, but there's something more potent about an attack on a hotel (as swish as these two were), a place where tourists and locals are relaxed, at ease, enjoying their leisure time - it's the last place they'd expect to be massaacred. The Taj Mahal Palace was indeed a grand old hotel. I hope it can be saved. But what I hope can be salvaged even more are the lives of the families and friends who lost their loved ones in Mumbai this week. (Read some of the moving first hand accounts of those who survived here.) I leave these Australian native flowers, a rare wattle from the East MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs, on the footpath outside the Taj, where Mumbai's destitute used to sleep. I hope they too can find a new home.