Colaba never sleeps and is always safe. Not only because of the Taj under whose glowing driveway limousines come and go all night. Not only because of the Gateway of India monument around which, at any time of the day or night, hundreds sit on the stone bench hugging the sea wall, gazing at the gently bobbing festooned launches and the Arabian sea. What gives Colaba its round-the-clock bustle is the Colaba Market, in the news for the siege of Nariman House. No “posh market” as described by a TV announcer, but an old bazaar, the market is  the heart of Colaba for those who live in this southern tip of Mumbai.  The main road here  is an extension of the fancy Colaba Causeway (built in 1838), where an old church, the grey stone Electric House and the spacious breezy Cusrow Baug, face rows of pavement stalls crowded with backpackers and teenagers haggling over touristy junk. Guests  spending the night here wonder how residents  sleep at all. But this constant flow of vehicles and pedestrians makes Colaba market one of the safest parts of Mumbai.

That is why the attack on Nariman House seemed so unreal. Even in the 92-93 riots, only one incident took place in Colaba, in the market, which incidentally, was the only one to remain open all through the riots. But for the first time last week, residents here couldn’t go to work, be it Maina, who lives in the old fishing village and works as a domestic help a few blocks away; Vimal, who commutes everyday from her chawl behind Nariman House to a distant suburb to paint fabrics in a workshop; or Dr Suresh Agarwal, whose clinic and residence are both located in buildings adjacent to Nariman House. Even BEST buses which make every important area just a 15-minute ride away, stopped plying into Colaba, though the Electric House terminal sent buses out as usual, in the opposite direction.

... contd.