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Terrorists attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008, killing 164 people and wounding more than 300. Mumbai is a massive metropolis of 20 million people. On a business trip in late November 2008, I was lucky to be at the Taj Mahal hotel that terrorists hit with coordinated attacks from two different points in their operation. I was one of the only Americans around and only spoke English while everyone else spoke Hindi. There were huge crowds of police, military and civilians. One would expect people to be afraid but there was no panic. I heard stories about how the police found one of the terrorists but didn't immediately stop him because he had only shot the Sears Tower in Illinois. It would be impossible to kill that many people in Chicago or New York. The Indian police wouldn't let him get far. Regardless, there was nothing I could do about it while I sat in an air-conditioned room watching television coverage of what was happening at home. I was in India for 30 days and had just finished a trip that went from Goa to Mumbai and then back to New Delhi before ending in the Lahore, Pakistan. I had arrived in Delhi via New York JFK and London Heathrow. It was a return trip back to Karachi, Pakistan where I spent two and half weeks. My flight out of Karachi was scheduled for November 23 but got delayed by 24 hours. I mentioned earlier about the fact that there were no athletes at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing because neighboring nations such as India, Pakistan and North Korea didn't send their small delegation to China over concerns about security issues. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai were hardly a day before the closing ceremonies in Beijing. The attacks were a major topic of conversation at the Paralympics that year in China. The Mumbai attacks made me even more frustrated with the politics between India and Pakistan. Those two countries have a history of fighting with each other dating back to independence after World War 2. India gained its independence from England on August 15, 1947 while Pakistan was created on August 14, 1947 by splitting off from India. There are two different stories behind why this happened but both essentially came down to religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Pakistan is an Islamic state. As a child, I was taught that the area that became Pakistan was part of the original Muslim country established in the seventh century by Muhammad bin Qasim. The British created a new country called India which included a major part of Pakistan's territory. When India gained its independence from England in 1947, it inherited a huge problem with Pakistan which was not going to give up land it considered to be rightfully theirs. One of the Beatles' songs says, "Here Comes The Sun," but in this case the 'sun' began to bring war between India and Pakistan since England left in 1947. cfa1e77820
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