Terror in Mumbai Touches Harvard Families

When the parents of Alisha Mashruwala ’11 calmly called her from their Mumbai home to tell her that their city was under terrorist attack, Mashruwala could hear grenade fire in the background.

She turned on the news immediately, and what she heard she said was unreal.

“When I was talking to my mom, I could hear grenade bombs on the phone, and I just didn’t know what to say,” she said. “The first thing I did was hope that everyone in my family was safe.”

As she later found out, her family and friends had several close calls. One family friend was at the Taj Mahal Hotel during the attack but managed to escape at 3 a.m., six hours after the attacks had begun. A family friend at the Oberoi Hotel pretended to be dead until she was told to escape from a back door.

“I cannot think what they were thinking while they were in there,” she said.

Mashruwala’s whole family lives in Mumbai, her home through the tenth grade. The bombed locations were places she and her family and friends visited on a daily basis, such as a local movie theater.

The attacks in Mumbai have claimed over 180 lives and left Harvard students and faculty with ties to the Indian commercial center searching for information on family members and grappling with the implications for their homeland.

NEAR MISS

Ria S. Tobaccowala’s grandfather was at the Oberoi Trident Hotel having drinks with friends at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, just hours before the terrorists came in.

“My family is from Mumbai, and my grandfather lives next door to the Oberoi hotel,” Tobaccowala ’10 said. “So this has literally hit home for us.”

She said her grandfather is fine but was shaken by the fact that he could have been caught in the carnage.

These attacks are particularly striking because of the targeting of westerners and higher Indian society, Tobaccowala said.

“It’s an interesting situation because the Taj and the Oberoi are where most of the foreigners go when they visit Mumbai,” Tobaccowala said. “They are the best hotels, they show India at its finest. They are two of the places where Indian society goes to play.”

Her parents had their wedding reception in the Taj Mahal Hotel.

“This is where my family is from, this is our home,” she said. “For my mom and dad, their childhood memories are being blasted away.”

CLOSE TO HOME

Mashruwala’s parents ate dinner at the Taj Mahal Hotel the night before the attacks. They live just fifteen minutes from the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, two of more than a dozen locations in Mumbai that came under fire last Wednesday.

“My parents were going to go to the movie theatre that got blown up that day and decided to stay home,” she said. When she first heard about the locations of the bombings, Mashruwala said one of her first thoughts was, “Oh my god, these are places so many people I know could be there at that particular hour.”

Though her parents did not witness any firings first hand, several of her friends were close enough to see the shootings.

Mashruwala said she called as many people as she could, but it was difficult to get in touch because phones were off or there was no service. She said she called her parents every half hour to make sure that they and everyone around them were fine.

The attacks lasted 60 hours, and, for the first two days, Mashruwala said, everyone was to stay inside. She said that even after the curfew was lifted and people were allowed to leave their homes, residents remained cautious—a contrast to previously indifferent attitudes to smaller-scale bombings.

“Bombay is a city where whatever happens, you get back on your feet, ready to go,” she said, using the British name for the city. “Everyone was too scared to go anywhere.”

Tobacowala said she was sadden as well as frustrated by the attacks.

“What do these people want? What do they want from us and what do they want from the world?” she asked. “They wanted our attention, and they got it. Now what do they want?”

Tobaccowala, who is president of the South Asian Association, said that the group is in the process of discussing about what kind of response they will have. She said they will plan a vigil for this week on the steps of Memorial Church, and hope to co-sponsor the event with other groups like Harvard Hillel and the Interfaith Council.

She said that SAA has plans to connect the attacks in Mumbai with preexisting plans for passport to South Asia week, starting Dec. 6.

‘NEED TO COME TOGETHER’

Professor Sugata Bose, a historian of South Asia, found out about the attacks while in his office on Wednesday and watched it unfold on television, but he said he learned more about what was going on from people in India. He said the American media coverage was superficial.

“There was much more depth in commentary from Indian channels and I wish I was able to hear more of that,” he said.

Though he hails from Calcutta, Bose said he knows Mumbai quite well and last stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel in July while doing work for Harvard.

Bose said his native country must face the challenge of responding to the attacks in a mature manner.

“While going after these groups responsible for this kind of awful, inhuman attack, we cannot get out of control. We have to deal with it peacefully,” he said. “Innocent civilians in both India and Pakistan have been victims of this kind of terrorism. It is a common fate for ordinary people,” he said. “We need to come together to fight this.”

Bose said the University faces its own challenges in light of the events.

“I think that what Harvard should do as a premier university is to redouble its efforts to understand South Asia,” he said. “We need to understand the roots of this crisis.”