In Mumbai a
few years ago--while it was still called Bombay--I visited the Taj Mahal
Hotel. (We were staying at the more
modern Leela Kempinski.) There was no gunfire then. The place was as hushed as a museum with an atmosphere of
bygone elegance. It was the
weekend, and I wasn’t working.
Dressed as casual as any American tourist, I felt quite out of
place. Someone, perhaps our
driver, had told us about the history of the place, that it was built to offer
equal luxury to Indians at a time when they were shut out of British hotels. I believe that one of the ideas behind
our entering the quiet lobby and polished hardwood and marble pathways of this institution was to find
something cold to drink. My
colleagues and I were not dressed for the surroundings, and quietly left.
Across the street we watched the small boats in the harbor, never suspecting that one day a similar boat might carry a team of terrorists to attack the venerable structure behind us.
As I stood
at the low, concrete wall of the waterside observation area, a short, white-haired man asked if I wanted to take his photograph. I ignored him, since that is the
preferred way to deal with the numerous beggars in that country. He sat down on the sidewalk at my feet
while I took a photo of the harbor.
A friend called me to look down and I saw that the man had opened a
basket just a few inches from my leg from which a cobra was raising its head to see the
possibilities.
The wizened entrepreneur had gotten my attention. I had to admire his enterprise, so I took his photo with the snake, and gave him some rupees. That was as dangerous as the neighborhood got in those days.
We also visited Victoria Terminus, the central railway station—which was a target of the terrorists as well. There was a sign prohibiting photography inside. That pained me, because it was such a photogenic site—ornate architecture and colorful with all the swarming passengers carrying bundles and bags and whatnot. In the foyer, as we were working our way back outside, I looked up to see a gorgeous, elaborately decorated ceiling. Well, I thought, I can understand the security aspects of resitricting photos of the traveling area, but surely no-one would mind if I shot this ceiling. As I lifted my camera, a security guard in the corner caught my eye and wagged his finger at me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a second guard a few steps away. This was a chunky man in a white shirt with a lathi (long wooden baton) protruding above his head as he held it behind his back. I have always said that I can take a hint without being beaten over the head, and in Victoria Terminus, I had the chance to prove it.
Sad to say, I don’t think the lathi was much deterrent against automatic weapons.
As a sign of the times, I believe there are more countries without functioning governments than any time since the Second World War. Unlike the wave of independence movements that marked the last half of the 20th century, we now see campaigns for anarchy and chaos as criminal gangs and ethnic demagogues seek to tear down all official authority.
The current crunch is going to exacerbate this tendency. Piracy is already up. The news commentators speculate on whether assaults, such as the ones in Mumbai, could happen in the U.S. The “experts” site our border controls and the lack of foreign sympathizer networks within our country.
What they don’t mention is the rocketing rate of unemployment and home foreclosures. There seems to be an uptick in hate crimes as well. All it takes is a little organization and the rising tide of anger could bring about our own insurrection movements.
Obama
promised hope and change. When he
gets in office, he will find that both are harder than he expected, and will
take longer to achieve. Meanwhile,
this is a nation of people who expect a happy ending before the next commercial
break.
I’m not making a prediction here, only posing the possiblity that the U.S. could be in for a ride as rough as that being experienced in the rest of the world.