A little more than three years ago, the Taj Mahal Hotel, which was at the center of this week's attacks, served as my temporary home while visiting Mumbai on a journalism fellowship.
The fellowship, sponsored by Johns Hopkins University, helped me to see the many connections between India and the United States.
The most noteable of those common links between India, and specifically New Mexico, is the cultural diversity of people.
New Mexico is rich in diversity with its mix of Hispanic, Anglo and American Indian people, among others. Religious diversity also is evident, with a large representation of Protestant, Catholic, Mormon and American Indian traditional beliefs.
India has nearly 1 billion people, of which about 700 million are Hindu worshipers, about 300 million are Muslim. There are smaller numbers of Christians, Jews and other worshipers, but what defines diversity in India more is its still-evident caste system.
There are the very rich, and the very poor, with many levels of social class in between. Arranged marriages are still practiced when the parents select the spouse for their children. Poverty rules in the shantytowns surrounding the major urban areas.
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Mumbai formerly was known as Bombay.
It is a seaport city, and the Taj Mahal Hotel is a century-plus-old work of beauty that stands along the shore and near an historic
Mumbai is particularly noteable because of its business climate. The city is known as the "New York of India." Its night life, fashion shops and worldwide appeal match the reputation.
Another connection be-tween India and the United States is its form of government. India, not the U.S., is the world's largest dem-
ocracy.
Its leader, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is a man small in physical stature but large in his influnce in regional affairs.
I was fortunate enough
to visit him one day at his state residence in New Delhi, where he shared with me in his backyard an afternoon tea service, which is a holdout tradition from the British days.
Before sitting down to talk business, we stood and talked of something much more personal and of common interest.
Our children.
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Mumbai is a city of perhaps 19 million people. One of its suburban shantytowns is consdered the largest such makeshift home in the world, where literally millions live side-by-side in shacks and lean-tos made of cardboard boxes or anything else that can be slapped together.
I once disposed of an
empty plastic waterbottle and watched children come behind me and fight over it. Not for a toy, but because anything that can contain and haul drinking water is a useful tool here.
While working on stories about AIDS and sex trafficking, I visited a filthy brothel deep in one of the city's seedy redlight districts. There, I learned about how women are sold into sex slavery, sometimes by their own fathers when the girls are still children.
One prostitute I interviewed was a woman who had turned to prostitution out of desperation after her husband and son both died within the past year. She appeared to be a tired woman in her late-30s to mid-40s. She was 24.
She sold herself to her clients for about 100 rupes per visit.
That amounted, in American currency, to about 50 cents.
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The Taj Mahal Hotel is no shack in shantytown.
It is a five-star treasure that caters to the most elite of world travelers.
Many a story of sailors and adventurers visiting Bombay during the past two centuries were born from this location.
Sailboats cruise to the archway from all points on the Indian Ocean.
It makes for a scenic sunset when the harbor is peaceful.
Sadly, as Wednesday's attacks proved, it is not always peaceful.
New Mexico suffers from drug wars, gang conflicts, immigration disputes and the never-ending fight against drug abuse.
India has those same problems, but much more intense hatred from those who refuse to be tolerant of another's religion.
Radicals try to destablize the Indian government to win more power for their political stands and to weaken India's grip and influence on neighboring borderlands, such as the disputed Kashmir territory and especially with arch rival Pakistan, which now is a nuclear power.
Something else we Americans have in common with India is concern of Pakistan's stability.
Already, American troops are fighting in Afghanistan on Pakistan's border, with incursions into the nation reported often in the search for terrorists.
This attack deep in India will do nothing to ease concerns of additional terrorism spawned in the region.
That is why this incident of terrorism shouldn't be ignored by New Mexicans as simply an event in a faraway land.
Biased hatred along with violence that reaches to test our own national security are matters deserving of our attention.
The days of living with isolationism are long gone, even in a vast geographical and fierecly independent state like New Mexico.
That's why places like India aren't so far away anymore.
And that's why we should notice.
Troy Turner is the editor of The Daily Times and holds a master's degree with dual special emphasis on civil rights and international relations. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 450, Farmington, N.M., 87499; or at tturner@daily-times.com.
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