A grandfather visited the room where his grandson was orphaned. A young man returned to the hotel where he narrowly escaped death. Mumbai residents went in droves to donate blood at a train station overrun in the 60-hour siege of India's financial capital.

One year after the attacks that killed 166 people, thousands gathered in the streets, many holding candles, and black-clad commandoes rappelled down a building in a spectacle meant to reassure the city that it is well-defended.

But beneath the pomp and sorrow, little has changed.

Luck, better intelligence operations and, to some extent, international diplomacy have kept Mumbai safe this last year, rather than any real improvement in the city's security forces, analysts and diplomats say.

Today, Mumbai remains nearly as vulnerable as it was last Nov. 26, when ten young men armed with assault rifles and almonds for energy began a three-day assault on two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station.

The attacks inspired books, Bollywood movies, taxi tours, and a gory video game, but little of the kind of searching structural and political change that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

Politicians who were pushed out of office in disgrace after the attacks have been reinstated. Voter turnout in Mumbai actually fell this year, and the new, independent candidates _ a doctor and a banker among them _ who entered politics promising change were largely ignored by the electorate.

The police have spent $27.7 million on new equipment and expanded manpower, restructured their response strategy and brought in experts from the U.S., Russia and Israel for training.

But analysts and police say the threat against India from groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for last year's attack, remains high, and activists say Mumbai's police department is still too muddied by politics to function effectively. This week's vigils were shot through with calls for further reform.

"The tragedy took place precisely because the police miserably failed in its duties," said Shukla Sen, a member of the Citizens' Initiative for Peace, who lit a candle Wednesday night outside the Taj Mahal hotel, where 31 were killed in a 60-hour siege. "The functioning of the police must improve."

On Thursday, crowds pooled nearby at the Gateway of India, a popular tourist attraction on the waterfront, pledging unity and vigilance and pointing up at the boards that still cover some of the windows of the iconic hotel. Some called for death by public hanging for Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman who is standing trial in Mumbai.