This is a picture not from Mumbai but from the train station at Ahmedabad just after the news of the blasts today. If you are Indian, you hear the news of bomb blasts in a city–and immediately think of the riots that will follow. Tragedy following tragedy with a certain fatal inevitability. I wonder whether a citizen of any other country has this dread, and whether we in the subcontinent, carrying the burden of our communal history, aren’t actually unique in this respect. The last time this happened in Mumbai, we know that Pakistani Intelligence had helped members of the Mumbai underworld set off bombs; in retaliation, during the months that followed, the right-wing Shiv Sena also reaped a bitter harvest of innocent lives and votes. It is not only the inhabitants of Mumbai but sane people everywhere who will be hoping that the swords and torches don’t come out again.

Here’s Suketu Mehta in discussion today; Manish Vij has been providing excellent updates; and SAJA offers varieties of local contact information, especially for journalists; Amit Varma supplies a comprehensive list of bloggers who are sending out news and coordinating help in Mumbai; and Uma has a link to a wonderful news-story by Somini Sengupta about “train friends” in Mumbai.

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