26/11: Looking Back, Looking Ahead 3

Parul Sharma, India Helps core team member is the celebrity author in our team, with her book Bringing Up Vasu out recently. She has been part of the team since the first day we met up, and has provided vital support on the Momina Khatoon case, and the Salma Thackeray case amongst others. Here is what she has to say:

I think I will remember 26/11 and the subsequent days as the darkest I have known in my life. As an Indian who sees tragedies and ill-managed disasters being reported every day from every corner of my country, I thought that somewhere I had developed a thick skin over my conscience. The carnage on 26/11, the unprecedented levels of violence, the systematic way in which innocents were killed, so close to where I was sitting watching my television affected me in a way that I did not think was possible anymore. I mourned the loss of those lives, I wept as the dead bodies were brought out, my heart swelled in pride at the people who laid their lives to protect their fellowmen and a little later when all that was left was a sense of deep loss and grief, I wanted to reach out and help in any way that I could. In other words, I felt as millions of others did.
India Helps was a small representation of those millions, a fragment of the larger whole. Today, I belong to this group with a sense of pride and it has helped me contribute in my own small way to my country and to my fellow Indians.

Parul Sharma
Author