Despite The News

Imaging waking up in the morning, in a country that just had a terrible bombing, having a flight that evening to Delhi, and reading headlines like "Airports turn into fortresses" and "All steps taken to ensure air passenger safety."

Brian and I were scheduled to head to Delhi and all of the papers were talking about attacks at airports. They mentioned Delhi among three airports for which the Indian intelligence had information about a potential attack. And this is all happening a week and a half after Mumbai and on the 16 year anniversary of the bombings at Babri Masjid. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out on Friday morning.

I got into the office on Friday and started asking around, getting my co-workers' opinions. Uniformly, everyone said we should go anyway. There's a lot of hype, but you need to go on living your life. I agreed, but was still a bit anxious about the whole thing.

Security at the airports was pretty crazy. There were guards walking around with rifles and semi-automatic weapons. In Delhi, on the way home, there was a guard sitting in a truck with a gun pointed at the crowd of people walking into and out of the airport. I was probably more scared of him accidentally slipping and pulling the trigger than I was about terrorists at that point. As I walked in front of his truck and in front of his gun, I couldn't help but take a deep breath.

Delhi itself had pretty tight security, too. I obviously haven't been there during other times to make a comparison, but every place we went had armed guards who frisked us and searched our bags.

On Saturday, we went to Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque. There was a group of people standing in front of the mosque rallying passerby. Behind them, news clippings and photos from the bombing at Babri Masjid covered the fence. The mosque was beautiful, but it was hard not to feel like it was a potential target as I walked through it.

In general, I felt really safe on the trip. The chances of anything happening are so slim. And most of Delhi just seems to be moving on as if there's nothing to worry about. But, the level of security in Delhi certainly makes you think twice.

Anyway, I guess my co-workers were right.