I was at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, in Mumbai, the other day, with a friend of mine.
We were trying to figure out which train to board when she remarked, "Can you believe it, we're standing on a station where so many people were mercilessly shot dead in cold blood on November 26 last year?"
I looked around at the milling crowds and wondered how many had been witnesses to that atrocity.
Almost every day, I take a train from this station without ever giving a thought to the fact that this was the site of a bloodbath that claimed the lives of 52 people.
Everything just seems so normal.
"Have you noticed that there is no plaque, or tribute anywhere?"
She nodded and, pointing to the middle platform, she said: "That's where the Jai ho song from Slumdog Millionaire was shot."
I hadn't noticed that either. I couldn't help thinking that the song, which means 'victory' in Hindi, couldn't have been shot at a better location than this very station, which was formerly known as the Victoria Terminus.
A city of contrasts. You can't avoid being struck by the apparent normality of everything here.
Apart from Leopold's Cafe and Bar, where the owners have decide to leave the bullet holes as a reminder of that day, nowhere else the attacks took place retains any of its scars.
The city has healed itself or at least, on the surface, it looks like it.
If you visit the Colaba suburb of Mumbai, you would never know what happened there.
My family and I stayed there for a week earlier this year, behind the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, while securing my admission in the University of Mumbai.
It seemed unbelievable to me, looking at the Taj, that the quiet and peaceful neighbourhood had been subjected to violent carnage and bloodshed that wrecked the lives of so many.
The waves were particularly high at that time of the year and my dad would take us around the Gateway of India, so my five-year-old brother could have a full view of the Arabian Sea.
On one such evening, my dad remarked, looking at the Taj: "It must have taken hatred, real powerful hatred, to want to bring that down and ruin the lives of so many."
However, all you can see around the place is laughter and smiles, though occasionally you may find a couple of people looking for scorch marks on the hotel.
About a month ago, I found a weathered sign at the rear-side of the Taj that I hadn't seen before.
This sign, put up by the Tata Group which owns the hotel chain, simply says: "Working together to restore the symbol of Mumbai's enduring spirit and dignity."
Ever since our stay in Colaba, nostalgia keeps drawing me back and each time I go there and look at the reconstructed dome of the Taj and read that sign, I somehow feel reassured.
¥ Jennifer is a former Bahrain resident, now studying in Mumbai
