Scenes from the Underground

On Thursday evening, just hours after the London blasts, my landlady Purnima Patel, a British Gujarati, refused to wear a salwar kameez when...

On Thursday evening, just hours after the London blasts, my landlady Purnima Patel, a British Gujarati, refused to wear a salwar kameez when we visited the neighbourhood shopping centre. We had dared to venture out in the evening, numbed after watching TV reportage on the blasts all day long. Purnima was being prudent, but her stance brought back memories of how I had to chop my hair real short during the Gujarat riots.

Walking to the shopping centre was our way of not getting cowed down by the attacks, but the sight of burkha and hijab-clad women, casually shopping, was strangely reassuring. Like after 9/11, the London blasts too had the Muslim community bracing itself for a backlash. Generally the media here have been responsible. Even tabloids on the day after the blasts desisted from carrying gruesome photographs. Headlines did not aim at inciting people. We had instead stories of dignified, brave, terror-stricken/grief-stricken people.

I guess I should be grateful that the Abu Dhabi authorities had refused to give me a visa on Wednesday evening for a three-day visit because I was unmarried and unescorted by a male relative. Scheduled to fly on Thursday evening from Heathrow 8212; the day of the London blasts 8212; it was a contemplative morning I spent, wondering about train connections to reach the Gulf Air office in Hammersmith-West London and rearrange my travel plans. Then a phone call from home in Baroda alerted me to the blasts.

London presented a sharp contrast to Gujarat at the time of the riots. Or even India, after the latest Ayodhya attack. As Bhanu Pandya, a British Gujarati with a Pakistani Muslim daughter-in-law whose son was working in Central London at the time of the blasts, put it, 8220;Look what the BJP-VHP did after the Ayodhya blasts in India 8212; they called a bandh 8212; why can8217;t we Indians learn to put up united front in times of crisis?8221;

The message here was that the best way to address the crisis was to carry on with life. On Friday, Bilkish Patel, a British Gujarati Muslim woman who works for the Marks and Spencer chain of stores, chose like a million other Londoners, to carry on. She travelled once again on the underground train to Central London back to her job, although on Thursday it had taken her husband five hours to get her home as all public transport had shut down. On Wednesday, she and other Londoners had celebrated the winning of the 2012 Olympic bid. 8220;I know fingers will again point at Muslims, but going back to work is my way of sharing in the tragedy and continuing a normal life with other Londoners,8221; she said.