On the one hand, I also recall my first visit to Mumbai and India back in 2000.
I, too, like many other tourists to Mumbai, had stayed within walking distance of where much of the shooting and violence has taken place in India this week.
As there is a wonderful English bookstore in the enormous Taj Mahal Hotel, situated across from the iconic Gate of India, I visited the location at least 4 times in my journeys in and around India that summer.
I also probably ate at a few of the restaurants where victims of the terrorist violence this past week had been dining. This is because at least one, Café Leopold, has been in the LONELY PLANET Guide for over a decade.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/india.attacks/index.html?eref=edition
On the other hand, I also recall how churchmen I had met in several parts of India on that and on my other journey to India have reached out to serve the poorer Muslim parts of India.
For example, the benevolent arm of my church, known as HOPE WORLDWIDE, has been involved in projects from Gujarat to Bangalore to Calcutta (and around the planet), reaching out to slum-dwellers and those who have lost their home due to violence or natural catastrophes.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=191&srcid=-2
Specifically, in 2000 I had visited with HOPE representatives in Bangalore . On one date in July, I had visited a set of schools that had been hallowed out of the garbage dumps in Bangalore in previous years.
The community living in and around these garbage heaps are Muslims, who come from all over southern India trying to make a better world for their families. The incoming poor Muslims sift the dumps to have property to sell or to build with.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=205&srcid=191
These particular school projects are fully run by local Indians who are reaching out to serve each other and even non-Christians.
AIDS awareness projects in India , as well as to other projects in Afghanistan and Cambodia are well-known and well respected.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=203&srcid=205
These projects are not intended to focus on proselytizing--as was the case 100 years ago in many parts of the globe.
This has been a positive change in how religious communities can and do approach each other often-despite what radicals and crazies on the fringe approach life and living.
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