Mansi Mahesh Shirke
Homemaker, mumbai
Mansi Mahesh Shirke, 30, lives in Nalla Sopara, a Mumbai suburb. She was born on November 26, 1979. The meaning of the day has changed for her since what happened in Mumbai on 26/11.She says: “Last year, on my birthday, as we were preparing to go out for dinner, the terrorist attack began without warning. We were caught unawares. We watched television for two days in horror and lost all sense of time. My birthday was forgotten,” she says.
She adds that her heart still goes out to the families who lost their near and dear ones in the attack by terrorrists. “Memories of the brave officers who were martyred in the line of duty still haunt me,” she says. “When I recall the sacrifice of Sandeep Unnikrishnan, my eyes well up.”
Mansi says: “It is impossible to live down the horror of what happened on 26/11 last year. So my birthday celebrations are bound to be a low-key affair this year. I would like to spend it quietly with my family."
Homemaker, mumbai
Mansi Mahesh Shirke, 30, lives in Nalla Sopara, a Mumbai suburb. She was born on November 26, 1979. The meaning of the day has changed for her since what happened in Mumbai on 26/11.She says: “Last year, on my birthday, as we were preparing to go out for dinner, the terrorist attack began without warning. We were caught unawares. We watched television for two days in horror and lost all sense of time. My birthday was forgotten,” she says.
She adds that her heart still goes out to the families who lost their near and dear ones in the attack by terrorrists. “Memories of the brave officers who were martyred in the line of duty still haunt me,” she says. “When I recall the sacrifice of Sandeep Unnikrishnan, my eyes well up.”
Mansi says: “It is impossible to live down the horror of what happened on 26/11 last year. So my birthday celebrations are bound to be a low-key affair this year. I would like to spend it quietly with my family."
even the remotest signs of fatigue. That is what sets him apart from other protesters who look drawn out and fatigued. He agrees with the ways of both Mahatma Gandhi as well as Subhash Chandra Bose. For him, there is no conflict of interest there. But in practice, he follows the non-violent ways of Gandhi. Satyagraha is his tool. For more than three years now, he has been fighting a battle for the separate statehood of Cooch Behar, comprising nine districts of Assam and West Bengal. The place where he has set his temporary abode is on the low-lying part of the footpath which gets water logged from time to time. Those nights, he has no option but to remain awake.
But each time, they have come up against the wall of death. People then did the next best thing. They sought to keep the memory alive (if not the body) with tombstones and totem-poles, in rituals and prayers and through memorials and mummified bodies. But at the beginning of the 21st century, a crack in the wall has appeared. For the first time in human history, the possibility of driving a hole through the wall of death is beginning to look real.
travelling economy class. The fact that the thinking class is actually looking at events with eyes askew was well illustrated by the exact opposite reactions caused by another such event. Let me explain. When External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and Minister of State Shashi Tharoor were found living in five-star hotels, a cry went up berating their sensibilities and calling them insensitive, among other things. When Sonia Gandhi made a conscious decision to travel economy, another sort of war cry arose.