Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus: three years ago a terrorist attack, this week a joyful flash mob

Three years ago, last Saturday, 10 gunmen laid siege to two hotels and a train station in Mumbai, killing 166 people. Images beamed around the world of the famous Mumbai train station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, showed the devastation inflicted by so few on so many.

Three years later, a new video circulating in India portrays a wholly different scene. Rather than terror, the YouTube video shows a gleeful flash mob dancing to the popular Bollywood hit “Rang de Basanti,” to the bewilderment and amusement of a crowded station.
A memorial for victims of the Mumbai attacks at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Railway Station marks the terminus on the third anniversary of the attack. (Rafiq Maqbool/AP)

The video was posted on Sunday. Indians are passing it around, praising its message of hope over terrorism. Journalist Salil Tripathi wrote on Facebook that the joyful dance “shows how terrorists can’t win, can’t dampen the spirits of India’s liveliest city.”

The video description says that more than 200 people, from age 4 to 60, joined in the dance. Watch the video here:

Read former Washington Post staff writer April Witt’s 2009 Magazine story of some American survivors of the attack here.