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Today marks the twelfth anniversary of India’s financial capital being held under siege by gunmen. On November 26, 2008, a band of gunmen that the Indian government believed to belong to the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out coordinated attacks across the city, hitting places in South Mumbai: Leopold Café, Cama Hospital, Nariman House, a Jewish community centre, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Oberoi Trident, Metro Cinema, and the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, which was the heart of the attack.
The attacks, which lasted over almost 3 days, claimed the lives of 116 people, including foreign tourists, of which 31 died in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel itself. From accusations of state-sponsored terrorism hurled by India against Pakistan to Indian families mourning the loss of their loved ones, the events that unfolded on 26/11, a decade ago, was a national crisis.
Looking back at moments in history such as these can often be upsetting and traumatic. But, with a book titled 26/11: Stories of Strength, The Indian Express, an English daily based in Mumbai, is looking to bring back pride and resilience to the Indian spirit and honour the victims of the deadly attacks.
This short, 177-page read released today has been edited by The Indian Express’s Associate Editor Kavitha Iyer and published by Penguin Random House India. The book “dips into ten years of reportage on Mumbai’s terror survivors to find that single mothers have attended night school to get an education, children who lost a parent have dared to dream big, those who lost sons have learnt to find new purpose in living,” says Penguin Random House India.
Iyer has curated accounts of the 26/11 attacks from survivors like Apurva Parikh who says, “Over time, I made my peace with what happened. The memories remain, they will never go away, but as time passes they trouble me less.” This book contains 10 such stories of “strength, of grieving and healing,” says The Indian Express that can now be read by others needing closure and wanting to better process the whirlwind that was 26/11.
Anant Goenka, Executive Director of the Indian Express Group, says, “In our country, we tend not to take the time to remember. For India’s millennials, 26/11 was one of the most horrific acts of violence that they have witnessed. We intend to use this day to remind ourselves of what Amitabhji (Amitabh Bachchan) said last year: that we shouldn’t define ourselves by what we are against, but by what we are for. And what we must be for, is each other.”
Read more about the book here.
Read more such stories here.
Feature image by Make My Trip
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