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Last March, I was at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel giving an interview and later sat down with a reporter at the Cafe Leopold, a short walk away and filled to capacity with young tourists. Stepping out from either of these places, one of the wretched of the city might touch your feet and beg for money. You squirm. And so, in Mumbai, extremes of poverty and wealth co-exist. When I was young, a story was often told that one of my uncles, on the usual pilgrimage to India that the Indians of Africa used to make, landed at Mumbai harbour, and was so grieved by the sight of the poverty, the kind of which he had not seen even in Africa, that he took the same boat back home.

Undoubtedly the siege of Mumbai by terrorists that occurred in the past few days was shocking. Another calamity in another part of the world. Many of us have visited the places that saw the attacks, some of us have lived in the city, have friends or family there. The Taj dining area, where I had a cup of coffee and a snack in March, and the Leopold, where I had another cup, were both fired upon. So was the railway terminus, which I have used on several occasions. Bodies littered the areas. It will be impossible not to have these thoughts whenever I visit Mumbai again.

But Mumbai is not new to mass violence. Indeed, this hip capital of film, fashion, and finance by the sea seems periodically to get visited by spectacles of horror.

In January, 1993, while on a tour of India, I was scheduled to go by train from Trivandrum, at the southern tip of the country, to Mumbai; on the evening before my departure, however, my local hosts received a frantic phone call, with the message: Don't send him to Mumbai. If he comes, it will be at his own risk. The city was in the grip of so-called "riots," in which — in the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Mosque in the north of the country — the Muslim population had become a systematic target of right-wing nationalist extremists. As the newspapers had already reported nationwide, Bombay Burns. (The name had not changed to Mumbai then.) Indians across the country shook their heads and held their breaths and waited for this madness to pass. I flew to Delhi instead. The plane made a brief and nervous stopover in Mumbai, and as we flew over the city I could see through the windows bleak, deserted streets. A sight to sink the heart. I recall thinking, during that visit, how easy it would be for tit-for-tat attacks to take place in such a large and diverse country with a mobile population. A temple for a mosque, and so on. Since then there have been several attacks on Mumbai, including the July, 2006, bombing of a train that cost 200 lives. In recent months, migrant workers from poor northern states have been systematically attacked and expelled from the city. A maha (great) exodus of 10,000 frightened workers out of Mumbai and other Maharashtra cities back to their villages is reported to have taken place in February this year.

What's so special about this terrorist attack? I don't want to sound callous or cynical — every life, anywhere, is precious, every attack is special. But the devastation of this one is far less than others India has seen. Clichés and platitudes, though, continue to sugar the media. Expressions of outrage sound studied and solicited, written to urgent deadlines. Surely, statements such as "This is our 9/11" are fatuous and opportunistic, easy comparisons seeking solidarity with the big boy (America). They only do insult to other, poorer victims of other violence. And what does this pouty headline mean: "The terrorists attacked my city because of its wealth"? A shopkeeper might have said that about his vandalized shop. This year, after all, India also saw bombings in Jaipur, Delhi and Ahmedabad. Only three weeks ago, as many as 18 blasts in the northeastern state of Assam killed 64 people and injured numerous others. There exists a Maoist insurrection in parts of central India. Only a squeak, if anything, from world media.

Admittedly, this attack had elements of high drama, a drawn-out siege involving "Islamists" and "Westerners" at a romantic location. After the Obama orgy of recent days, in which we all participated, here was something new for television and the Internet to cover wall-to-wall, day and night. The spotlight was on Mumbai, the besieged queen of India, now recognized as an important economic and military power. India enjoys a prestige in the world that its neighbour Pakistan can only envy, barely holding itself together. Within the past decade, the growing self-confidence of the Indian middle classes is something to marvel at, hardly seen elsewhere except perhaps in China. Indians see themselves not as a growing economy, an emerging market, or a developing country but as an emerging superpower. The attitude says, nothing can stop us.

Recently, India successfully sent a probe to the moon, no mean achievement for a country seen as starving only two decades ago, and a boost to the Indian ego. Only two other nations have a place in Indian sights, China the competitor, and America the country to emulate and overtake. And so a brazen attack on its symbol of new prosperity has come as a deep shock both to India and its friends. Moreover, this is not the work of mobs or hoodlums, which can be devastating but comprehensible, but an audacious and planned attack carried out with the assistance, it seems, of foreign "elements." It is a slap on the face of the proud new India. A veritable boo.

My Indian friends tell me of their numbness, their shock; there is anger and deep disappointment at the unpreparedness and complacency of local and central governments; at local politics obstructing true governance. There is no point in joining the league of 9/11 look-alikes, each country has its own problems to solve. Mumbai may be wealthy, but surely the underclass has to be acknowledged, and the hoodlums who set upon innocents at the instigation of politicians brought to justice. That rarely happens. You can be certain that they'll be back during the next "riot." Is it surprising, then, that young men can be recruited easily to commit such ghastly acts upon fellow humans? And how can a nuclear power, which sends probes to the moon, with a million-man standing army, be caught off-guard like this, by a small army of young men in T-shirts and jeans landing on the shore of its most prominent city?

After the shock comes the wariness about repercussions — against Muslims. One commentator was quick to point out that among the first casualties were six Hindus and four Muslims. In India, unfortunately, such balance sheets are often necessary. (During my own travels in the country I refuse to be categorized as either one or the other.) In a column, novelist and former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations Shashi Tharoor pointed out that if this atrocity "leads to demonization of the nation's Muslims, the terrorists will have won." It is to their credit that the Indian commentators have brought up the social dimension of this phenomenon, while here we were treated to the mechanics of the siege ad nauseam.

But Mumbai, it is said, always recovers. Mumbaikars are resilient, they bounce back, and they already sound defiant. You can bet some film mogul is sitting somewhere having chai and contemplating possible movie scenarios, calling up actors, scriptwriters and songsters. As a song I used to hear during my childhood went, Aa Mumbai, aa Mumbai chhe This is Mumbai.

Two-time Giller winner M.G. Vassanji's latest book is A Place Within: Rediscovering India.