Farah Baria, writes a great piece in the Indian Express.

Even at the best of times, there’s one scene that never changes: battered railway coaches packed with the human flotsam of a brutal city. Men, women, and children, travelling like concentration-camp refugees to do the only thing they know: survive.

In hospital, a happy ending’I saw 25 bodies being piled up’They’ll just sit it out, wait for the trains Sonia, Lalu leave for Mumbai They were just trying to get home

This is Mumbai’s Western Railway Line, the fragile umbilical cord that links our metropolis to the Motherland, across the amniotic swell of the Arabian Sea. It is also Mumbai’s lifeline, ferrying four million citizens from hydra-headed suburbs to the congested heart of the city in relentless pursuit of a livelihood.

On Tuesday, that lifeline was cut, savagely severed by a hand that obviously knows Mumbai’s anatomy well. Seven serial bombs at seven stations–all key nerve centres–in peak-hour traffic. When in doubt, aim for the jugular. Hannibal Lecter couldn’t have done better.

It isn’t the first time Mumbai has been mortally wounded. Exactly 13 years ago, 13 bombs brought India’s feisty financial capital to its knees. Back then, the prime target was the Stock Exchange, that impudent icon of progress and prosperity. The aim: to symbolically cripple a newborn economy, taking its first baby steps towards globalisation.

Check out the entire article here

[Hat tip: Taj ]