Silver lining
Two cruise ships cancelled scheduled stops in Mumbai this week, so many of my tours could not run. Some business visitors have frozen travel to Mumbai, so that has also resulted in cancellations.
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But over this past weekend, and this morning, something very nice has been happening. Individual travellers (who comprise most of my business) have begun to send me fresh tour bookings.
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One lady says:
My beloved son (28) will be in India over the holidays. We want to support your country in spite of this horrific tragedy and not let the terrorists define our lives. My son is very interested in cultural life, religious traditons (.......) I read your website and would like to arrange some tours for him.
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Another couple sent me this:
We are glad our trip is coming up in 2 weeks and will not let these terrorists interfere with our first visit to India and to Mumbai. We've heard so many wonderful things about your tours (and we feel like we know you already from your blog :) - We arrive in Mumbai on Dec 21nd and would love to schedule a bazaar walk for December 22nd if that would work.
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There are still other emails that echo similar sentiments. When the first of these messages came in, I thought of it as a one-off case. Then, as more similar messages came in, they made me sit back and think. What do these tour bookings really say about us as humans?
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Perhaps they show that when we are given a choice, human beings choose to react in ways that show the strength of the individual spirit. I think I learnt, in the nicest possible way this morning, that there are no "one-size-fits-all" answers to how we choose to live our lives.
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What a unique species we are!
i think it's really wonderful people still want to come to india.
keep getting them in... that's going to help more than some idiotic moron who thinks you should not worry about
Deepa, its so comforting to know that everyone is still visiting and the wor
Anon 2, Of course I'm worried about tour cancellations. Are you suggesting I shouldn't be focusing on my businesses? Is that what you want me to