humans vs subhumans

Ex-Ontario resident: “It could’ve been me”

A last-minute change of dinner plans may have saved Shweta Subramaniam from being a casualty of the Mumbai bomb blasts.

Subramaniam, who moved to India’s financial and entertainment capital from Ottawa in February to pursue a singing career, had planned to meet a friend on Monday night.

At the last minute, her friend cancelled. Subramaniam would have taken the Western Railway line to travel from her home in the midtown suburb of Andheri West to Santa Cruz, where the friend lived.

An hour later, the first in a series of powerful bomb blasts rocked that line.

“It’s a godsend he cancelled. It’s quite scary because it’s one of those moments when you think — it could have been me. The train route where the blasts happened is a regular one for me,” a shaken Subramaniam said in a phone interview from Mumbai yesterday.

…

Back in Mumbai, Subramaniam is rattled, though not enough to return to Canada, as her parents in Ottawa are urging.

Ironically, her parents had been nagging her to buy first-class tickets on the commuter trains, but she refused, preferring to travel second-class.

• Artice: thestar.com
• Frontpage: http://www.thestar.com/images/covers/pdf/STAR_2006-07-12_A01-NE01.pdf
• Wiki Articke: 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings