When I was in Mumbai, almost a year ago, I was on a strict backpacker's budget. So strict, in fact, that even the youth hostels in Mumbai were too expensive, and so I only ended up visiting the city for the day in between two overnight bus rides (I was traveling with some friends from Diu in Gujarat to Goa).
Last week, I was surprised that when images of the CST train station and the Taj Hotel came up on CNN, I recognized both buildings.
We didn't travel to or from Mumbai by train, but the train station was the first place we went when we arrived in the city by bus. Train stations in India have information for tourists and clean(ish) bathrooms, and they are never too far from other cheap forms of transport around and out of the city.
I didn't spend anytime at the Taj hotel, but I recognized it because we must have driven by it three different times while we were lost. I drooled over the upscale shops around it, and imagined the western style toilets and hot showers inside.
To me, the Taj hotel represents the Western conveniences that I was so incredibly homesick for after 3 weeks of constant travel in India. The train station was more of a beacon for me. I'll never forget trying to orient myself, nervously looking from the station's beautiful Gothic architecture to the dot marking "Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus" on the map in my Lonely Planet.
Aravind Adiga, author of "The White Tiger" and Brian Jenkins, a security analyst for the RAND Corporation, are on the program, but we also want to hear from you: do the targets of the Mumbai attacks have symbolic values to you?
Comments
Discussions for this story are now closed. Please see the Community FAQ for more information.