September 23 - I am sitting in Heathrow, waiting for a connection to Seattle, then to Arizona, then to Utah and then back to Delhi. I have been watching a British Airways 747 get prepped for a trip somewhere exotic. The size of the plane. The nerve to get to the point of making something that big fly--with people and packages! Just amazingly nervy. I am in awe.I haven't commented on the terrorist attacks in Delhi. Jennifer and I were getting ready for a Saturday night date, Jennifer was in the shower or putting on make-up when our driver, Jagsir, rang the doorbell and came down telling us (about as passionately as Jagsir can get--he is very understated) to turn on the tv news. They were reporting the bombs, which went off in at least two of the places we had been considering for our date (India Gate and Connaught Place). The original reports were not as devastating as what we learned in the days after--the number of dead! However, we knew better than to go out in public. But, we still went out to a smaller enclave with sleepy store fronts and a nice Punjab-inspired restaurants, Moti Mahel.
In subsequent days, this last Monday in fact, the bombers were taken out in a High Noon shootout. Thumb drives and hand scrawled documents revealed that their next target was my office building. All indications now are that the group has been thwarted, although the local press has done everything in its power to venerate the terrorists, without necessarily trying to. Stories of their lives, their ambitions, their wasted talents. Details of their burials, photos of them and detailed accounts of their day-to-day movements. How can there not be others who dream of such recognition, however fleeting--especially in our celebrity culture?
Am I scared? I am concerned. I am still convinced that the changes are much greater that I die in a car wreck than at the hands of a terrorist. And bearing the awful daily burden of fear would kill me in the end--just the weight of constant and consuming vigilance. So I choose not be be afraid. But I take precautions--precautions I would likely take in any event. So there is so much more to focus on here, and I choose that.
