Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan talking about the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai on its 13th anniversary.
Pressing upon the importance of human interconnectedness, Amitabh talked about incidents that reunited both countries across the borders, despite differences.
“The strike on Mumbai, November 26, 2008, played out as slow-motion mayhem, targeting its landmarks, while audiences watched the terrible spectacle, live and uninterrupted, on TV," wrote the actor in his piece published in The Indian Express.
He continued, “It stretched from the five-star hotels, Taj and Trident, frequented by the city’s glittering elites, to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus railway station, from where, over the years, hundreds and thousands of Indians, men and women, have poured into Mumbai, as if pulled by a magnet, carrying with them a hope and a dream.”
Amitabh Bachchan also iterated India's reaction to the attacks saying: "Despite immense pressure, it did not give in to the temptation of military retaliation against Pakistan.”
Desptie the occasional differences, the actor talked about the grand gestures over the years by famous personalities that have reunited the countries.
"Sometimes they nestle in the warmth of the hug that went viral, that India’s captain Virat Kohli gave to Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam, after the men in green defeated the men in blue in the first game of the T20 World Cup that concluded in Dubai recently.”
He added, “Sometimes they revel in the smashing box office success, in India and also in Pakistan, of the 2015 Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan, a cross-border tale about empathy and compassion, an Indian man’s struggle to reunite a Pakistani child with her family.”
The Black actor concluded that, “freedom from fear means that we are more at ease with our neighbour,” adding, “No terrorist must be allowed to change the way we are in the dark, or with our neighbour, or ourselves. No single act of terror must be given the power to destroy the interconnectedness of our stories, our plural solidarities.”