Heartsick over terrorist attacks in his homeland of India, Nitya Niranjan looks to the essence of his religion. Always, he prays for peace.
“With Hindus, the prayer ends with peace to you personally, peace to the community, and peace to the whole world,” he said.
Niranjan, 55, is a vice chairman of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell. The temple has about 800 members, but opens its doors to all. The public is welcome at a service Tuesday evening to pray for victims of last week’s horrendous violence in Mumbai.
As of Saturday, at least 170 people had been killed and nearly 300 injured in the bloody siege, which targeted luxury hotels and a Jewish center in India’s financial and entertainment hub. Formerly called Bombay, Mumbai is on India’s western coast, on the Arabian Sea.
Niranjan is from northern India, but with a nephew, a brother-in-law and friends in Mumbai, he is worried and angry.
His brother-in-law is safe, but Niranjan isn’t certain about friends. “Getting in touch with all of them is not easy. One of my best friends from high school is in Mumbai. I e-mailed him, but haven’t heard,” he said.
A scholarship at the University of Washington brought him to the United States in 1975. He’s planning a trip to Mumbai next year for his nephew’s wedding.
“It’s human nature to worry, but these things could happen anywhere. Tell me, which place is safe right now?” he said. “It’s really tragic.”
Tightly organized gunmen zeroed in on 10 targets, according to Associated Press and Los Angeles Times reports. In addition to the five-star Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, attackers found victims at a restaurant, a train station, hospital and the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center.
“People were sitting having dinner, or walking down the street. Somebody came and shot them. Somebody’s family got hurt,” Niranjan said. “These people who are terrorists, they don’t give a damn. It is so, so sad.”
Niranjan believes the attacks were an attempt to destabilize the relationship between India’s Hindu majority and the Islamic minority. “When something like this happens, people start killing each other. The worst thing, with 150 dead, I don’t think it’s over,” he said.
“In America, an African-American can be president,” Niranjan said. “I was hoping something had changed.”
Virinder Duggal is executive committee president at the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center. Speaking from San Francisco, where his wife was getting a visa for the couple’s trip to India this week, Duggal said Friday that the Bothell temple may raise money for families of the Mumbai victims.
A Boeing engineer, Duggal, 55, came here from New Delhi in 1979. He’s been involved with the Bothell temple since its start in 1987. He expects a crowd for Tuesday’s service, when everyone is invited “to share their feelings and pray. For certain celebrations, we’ve had 2,500 to 3,000 people,” he said.
Duggal was at home in Kirkland when he heard about the attacks. “It’s terrible news,” he said. “I don’t know how anybody in their right mind can come up with any excuses for it. I don’t think anybody can have a full grasp of it.”
The news was stunning, Duggal said, because in multicultural India different religious groups have coexisted for so long. “It’s a very old society, and everybody lives together, everybody in harmony,” Duggal said.
According to the Los Angeles Times, India’s foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, on Friday linked the attacks to unnamed groups in Pakistan, while Pakistan countered that it wasn’t at fault.
Niranjan rejects the notion that Islam is to blame. “Real Muslims don’t believe in killing people. They don’t believe in terror,” he said.
“When I came from India, I had a lot of Islamic friends. We’d sit down together, there’s no difference,” Niranjan said. “You can’t just blame Islam. These guys are brainwashing people in certain sects — ‘Kill yourself, you have nothing going anyway.’ They’re killing very innocent people,” he said.
Despite the violence, Duggal and his wife plan to board a British Airways flight to New Delhi via London on Wednesday.
“We are a little bit apprehensive, but we are going to go. We have our family,” he said. “Life cannot stop.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Tuesday service
The Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell will hold a service at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to pray for peace and for victims of recent terrorist attacks in India. The service is open to the public.
The temple is at 3818 212th St. SE, Bothell. Call 425-483-7115 or go to www.htccwa.org.
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