They were from all over the country, from far-apart backgrounds, who found themselves together in the furrow of destruction. And in that moment, they acted out of their best selves. The images of this tragedy are hard to forget — the policeman giving water to a bloodied child, the nanny who saved the two-year old son of the Jewish couple in Chabad House, the families thronging outside — we relate to them,

because we relate to each other.

This is not to extract some easy redemptive strand out of the Mumbai tragedy — there may be none, for those who have lost the people they love to the inscrutable rage of unknown terrorists. What happened will continue to haunt India. But meanwhile, it has also reminded us of what we are capable of.