I just got done watching a news clip, telling of mass terror attacks in Mumbai, India. 78 people killed and around 200 wounded by gunmen attacking places frequented by tourists. The Taj was one of them - a high class hotel that I passed on my way "home" daily and on the way to the Gateway to India along the water. As if that wasn't shocking enough, a note along the top of the clip reported that there was an attack at Leopold's Cafe. Leopold's.
If any of you have read my travel blogs on my past trips, you'll know that Leopold's was possibly my most constant hang-out in Mumbai - my safe haven from touts and the poverty-stricken world outside that had traumatized me so when I arrived there. It had been in business for over a century and was a favorite of tourists from all countries.
And now it's the site of a terror attack where people died on its floors. Floors that I'd walked upon my share of occasions. It was a small place - just a corner cafe, really. It sounds strange when I say it out loud, but the terror attacks have never hit so close to home for me. Even the 9/11 attack seemed impersonal - I'd been to New York once when I was maybe four and never since. It was almost a different world there. I remember Mumbai well and will never forget my experiences there.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not playing "it could have been me" scenarios in my mind. More images in my mind of blood where I once sat, waiters who smiled at me possibly dead, and knowing that Leopold's days of being a tourist haven are over as long as the memory of that blood lives. So not "it could have been me" - it's "why the place that I knew?"
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