Well, I’ve returned to Mumbai. I apologize for the gaps in my postings, but I had limited access to the Internet while in Israel.
Sarah and I spent about 10 days in Jerusalem, staying with a couple very good friends of Sarah’s for both Shabbatot. We ate, slept, and played Settlers, for the most part. It was also our time really to decompress after everything and to gear up for our return to Bombay.
The week in between those Shabbatot – the week when my father was supposed to arrive to Bombay for a three-week visit, which was, needless to say, cancelled – we stayed at a hotel close to the JDC office. We spent our days ambling around the city, going to the mall, eating falafel and other kosher foods (for Sarah, that meant lots of meat! ; I revelled in the high quality coffee – especially at Tachanat HaCafe, or “The Coffee Mill”), seeing old friends (including Natasha!), finding happy-hour specials (most notably, a two-shekel shot deal at a bar named Scream), and enjoying the much-brisker-than-Mumbai December weather. We made trips to the shuk for Marzipan rugelach and salty seeds, cheap Israeli chocolate and plentiful halvah.
We also had the opportunity to present our experiences working in Mumbai to a host of the staff at the JDC office at a special lunchtime program. We made a nice little powerpoint presentation and spent some time talking to about 30 staff members about the Bene Israeli community, the education and programming that we do with them, and our hopes for the future. It was nice to take advantage of the increase in interest in the community (because of the attacks) for a better purpose – educating somewhat high-profile people about a minority community.
[During my time away, I received an excess of e-mails, Facebook messages, and blog comments, as well as a couple of blog acknowledgements. My blog was even noted to the North American council of JCCs. I was also interviewed by my local news station, Capital News 9, from Albany, NY. If you're interested in seeing the piece, it is up online here.]
After our 10 days in Israel, we boarded a plane at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to return to Mumbai. Seven hours of turbulance later, we were back in Bombay. A friend picked us up at the airport, where we also bumped into a friend of ours from the Israeli consulate in Mumbai (who we happen to be having dinner with later tonight). Careening through the traffic-filled Mumbai streets, walking up the four flights of stairs to our flat, unpacking and cleaning, it was almost as though we had never left…
Except that our feelings about being here aren’t exactly the same.
The night before leaving Israel, Sarah and I had the opportunity to make a decision about whether or not we were ready to return. We took a short walk from Sarah’s friends’ apartment, to a local petting zoo, where we stood by the placid turkeys and ducks and the sleeping goats, to discuss for what felt the first time our feelings about returning to Mumbai. We’d been asked countless times to retell our experiences over Wednesday night through Thursday night, from the start of the attacks to our evacuation, and we had been questioned about our experiences with the community and the work that we do with them. But, that Saturday night, Sarah and I paused to decide how we felt about the situation as a whole. How did we feel about returning to a place where terrorists demanded British and American passports? Where the Chabad center had been held hostage? Where our friends had been killed? How did we feel about being so visible, so white, so American, so Jewish, in a place where terrorists had likely killed people for just those things?
Truth be told, we are both still nervous. But we returned. Better now than a week from now, when we would have built up the return, elevated it and dramatized it, expanding our own fears. And better now than never, partially because we don’t want to send the message that the terrorists scared us out, partially because we don’t want to let fear override us, partially because we have built lives here in Mumbai and to some extent it is our home, and mostly because we have a a job here. We have a responsibility to the Bene Israeli community that neither of us wants to give up, because we have formed relationships, and those go both ways. They are counting on us as much as we are counting on them.
Unfortunately, many things have been cancelled because of the attacks. My father’s trip is one; my sister’s might be another. I don’t blame either of them, and I know that if circumstances were different right now, they would be here in a heartbeat. I’m angry and frustrated because I should be with my family right now, but instead I am trying to find other times for them to come, and I am continuing to be far from them in so many ways. Now, Sarah and I are fighting to maintain the plans of the shaken community (click through for an interesting perspective piece from the BBC): putting on the Khai Fest cultural performances (taking place in two weeks), holding a youth camp for the JYP members, having a Hanukkah party for the children and youth, reinstating classes, helping with services for the Jewish Reform Union. But I know that – trite as this will sound – in our minds and hearts, we are asking, “What more can we do?”
Ultimately, if you want to how we’re doing, we’re fine. Sarah and I are back to our routines. We come into the office, do our jobs, go home, work out at the gym, watch tv, cook, eat, sleep, live. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
But inside, we are still just a little bit nervous, somewhat angry, and mostly sad.
