To the editor:

My heart grieves for India. Recently, I was in Mumbai. I ate my first dinner on Indian soil at the Leopold Cafe. Not unlike Free State Brewery, the atmosphere is one of a friendly, if noisy, streetside pub. Through the French doors that open into the street, vendors wander in, hawking their bongo drums. With square tables and open seating, conversation with strangers is easy to strike up. I chatted with fellow tourists: a young couple from Holland and two Chinese women who were doing India by rail.

When I saw on TV the pictures from the aftermath of the terrorism and violence that descended upon Mumbai, I immediately recognized those square tables where I ate my first meal in India. I worried: the friendly young man who waited upon me, is he all right?

India, a country of 1.2 billion people, is a large and complex place. I know sectarian tension and enmity exist. I also know from many, many conversations during my five-week stay there, that the Indian people, whether they are Christian, Hindu, Muslim or other, deeply desire, in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, their nation’s founder, to live together in peace.

Rev. Peter A. Luckey,
Lawrence