In the looking, I found the cities within me.

Commuter trains are the easiest target for terrorists, as we have seen in Madrid, London, and now Bombay. But it is difficult for a Westerner to comprehend the kind of overcrowding in a Bombay local train; they ferry six million passengers a day. A bomb that goes off in one of those compartments will have maximum impact.

There have always been elements in the Pakistani state that have been hostile to India; which is not to say that the Pakistani government as a whole is responsible for bombing Indian cities. But I think there are entities in the Pakistani security services that operate more or less autonomously. Their role certainly needs looking into.

In the looking, I found the cities within me.

A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have come here have not been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they came from, these people got up and moved. As I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving.

I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.

And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand that is reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Brahmin or untouchable or whether you were born in this city or arrived only this morning or whether you live in Malabar Hill or New York or Jogeshwari; whether you’re from Bombay or Mumbai or New York. All they know is that you’re trying to get to the city of gold, and that’s enough. Come on board, they say. We’ll adjust.