How safe do we feel in our city?

The first public place I went to the first day I reached Pune this time I visited India was a restaurant my sisters and cousins took me to. My sister was stopped and the boot of her car searched. I felt a bit frazzled. Where were they taking me? Is this some important building housing foreign nationals, bureaucrats, ambassadors or may be big shot Bollywood stars? Is there some kind of alert? No. it is just a terrace restaurant my sister told me. It seemed like she had experienced this before and thought it was perfectly normal.

The next shock was visit to the dentist. The dentist’s office is on the top floor of a hospital. There were metal detectors and purses and bags were being searched. I felt really unsettled. My sister again reassured that it is a routine procedure in all hospitals now. There was no red alert or anything to worry about. Everybody in the line continued like it was an everyday thing. I seemed to be the only one who was shocked, confused, pained.

The third time I went through metal detectors in another hospital building, it did not shock me but it still did not feel normal part of life. The security in terms of metal detectors, bag searching, checking vehicles etc. started at various public places like hospitals, restaurants, business centers after the Feb 2010 bomb blast at German bakery.  I had visited Pune before that in 2009 making this development shocking and painful experience.

Pune is an important city from the military point of view as it is the headquarters of the southern command. It is also a potential target for terrorist attack because of the National Chemical laboratory (NCL), National Defense Academy (NDA),  – a military training center, Armament Research Development Establishment (ARDE), High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) and the list goes on. I lived in close proximity of the later two before moving to NYC but it never felt unsafe.

Now that I am back in NYC and thinking about it, I remember the paramilitary police and military presence in Penn station. People loaded with assault rifles and ammunition in their military fatigues. Interestingly their presence neither makes me anxious nor does it make me feel secure. For me they are just kind of part of the picture like the eateries, people running here and there, announcements, signs for trains arriving and so on.   

I have read multiple times the warning signs in subway stations that backpacks can be randomly searched. Initially when I glanced at the sign I immediately thought about the contents of my back pack and if I had packed it well enough that they can do a cursory search and did not have to take everything out. I also thought about the people who they might stop and wondered what they might see that made them stop the person. Did I have characteristics that will make them stop me? As the city became my own, and I did not feel like an outsider, I stopped thinking about these signs as well.

I don’t feel unsafe living in NYC. Though logically I should if I make a list of reasons it could be a terrorist target and also by the presence of the military and the searching that tells me that there is a possibility. But I don’t feel unsafe. The possibility of an attack does not enter my day-to-day thinking. I don't think twice before entering a subway. I wonder if visitors to NYC feel differently.

This chain of thought reminds me of a conversation way back in 2004 when I was visiting a client in Chicago. I lived in India at that time. He asked me how I felt living in India always feeling unsafe thinking about the nuclear capability of India and Pakistan and their strained relationship. What? I had never thought of it that way before he mentioned it. I did not feel unsafe, not for a single moment. We did not live in constant fear of the next attack or nuclear fallout. Everyday life was as normal as it could be even though perception of an outsider was far from it. People even in places plagued with terrorist threats and violence do get on with their lives and do have everyday lives as normal as possible in their circumstance. Just like it was normal life for my sisters I guess when I visited them this time, though not for me. Just like life is normal to me here in NYC!