Bombs over Bangalore

We returned to Bangalore at around 6 AM on Friday, July 25 after a fantastic three week holiday in the US (see previous post). One of my main priorities upon our return was the collection of our two kitties from our friends JP and Yasmine since I missed them so much and wanted to get them home as soon as possible. We ended up leaving our house at 12 PM to head to their place and as usual, what we thought would be a quick trip there and back ended up instead leading to long visit with them since we always get talking and get wrapped up in conversation and then eating, having tea, etc (not that I am complaining, I love hanging out with these two, they are so fun and interesting it is easy to lose track of time). While we were talking their phone rang and JP answered it to find on the end of the line a friend who had been frantically trying to reach them for the past few hours to no avail. While we were chatting and having a nice afternoon, nine low-intensity bombs had been detonated at seven different sites in Bangalore (all of them quite far from where both we and JP and Yasmine live) resulting in two deaths, twenty injuries and a good deal of panic. Phone networks were immediately jammed resulting in greater panic as loved ones could not be contacted. Even my colleagues were worried as they knew that Eric and I were going to be out and about to pick up the girls but they were not able to reach me either. To its credit, Bangalore reacted much better to this tragedy that I would have expected, I feared that the panic would result in riots and violence, traffic snarls (worse than the already horrible Bangalore traffic) and mayhem. We waited a while after learning of the blasts before venturing out to go home and I was happy to find everything was normal (this is, of course, a relative term). The next day another bomb was found at Forum Mall, the biggest mall in Bangalore (I think) which is just about on the other side of the world from where we live. Sadly, sixteen more bombs were detonated on Saturday in Ahmedabad (a city in the West of India) where so far 49 people have died and nearly 200 are left injured. As far as I know, no one has claimed responsibility for the Bangalore bombing and police have few, if any, leads. Several Indian TV channels have said they had received an e-mail from a terror outfit called Indian Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the bombings in Ahmedabad; however, Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami has also claimed to be responsible for the attacks. I don't really have much of a commentary on these events, it is just frustrating to see such senseless violence which results in nothing but an opportunity for the politicians to pander and stoke the fires that already burn too brightly.

Practice Makes Perfect

I apologize for the delay since my last post but as most of you probably know Eric and I were in the US for our summer holiday for most of July and we have just returned to Bangalore, landing at the new International Airport in the wee hours of July 25. I won't bore you with how our trip was, we had a wonderful time and always love to come home, there are few things that can spoil a trip to the US for us, not even flooding (which had luckily pretty much receded before we arrived in the Quad Cities) or even a freak storm with wind speeds up to 100 mph which lasted only about 20 minutes but knocked down probably thousands of trees resulting in power outages for much of the Quad Cities and the surrounding areas (this happened on Monday, July 21 at around 5 AM I think). Power, shmower, that's what I say. Living in India has toughened up a little I think, but we were thrilled when Dad hooked up the generator and even managed to get the water back on in time for us to shower before leaving on Wednesday. Anyway, the trip was awesome and we are so grateful to everyone who took the time and effort to see us, we really appreciate it. One positive development that resulted from our trip is that we obtained our last Indian visas (for now at least, hopefully in the future we will be applying for tourist visas, but no more employment visas please!) which expire on July 15, 2009 so that is our deadline for our permanent return to the US (contingent of course on the November presidential elections). Yay! Our trip back to India was uneventful though our flight from London to Bangalore sucked which resulted in me getting maybe 3 hours of total sleep in the entire 24 hour period of travel. This does not help my jet-lag at all, explaining why I am writing a post at 4 AM on a Monday morning. I am going to be hurting later...

One thing that I noticed while we were waiting for our flight in O'Hare is how much easier this gets for us each time (Okay, for me, not us. Eric is his normal controlled stoic self under almost all circumstances except of course for Indian internet customer service). To be clear, it is never easy to leave your home, your friends, you family, your "normal" way of life but it does get less painful. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't really think that it is less painful, but rather the pain is less acute. Last January I cried like a baby when I said good-bye to my Mom and Dad and sat in O'Hare weeping over our imminent departure. This time I shed a couple of tears when I said good-bye but the pain was not as sharp. Maybe it was because I know we will be home again for a visit in just 4 short months, maybe it was because I know that there is only one more set of good-byes to be said before we return permanently next July, maybe it was because I have developed better coping mechanisms. Who knows, but I am grateful that I am able to manage better. Anyway, we are back in our temporary home for one last year, and I am hopeful that the year will be fun and productive, and most of all, that it will go fast!