The year 2008 required us to travel a lot of times to Mumbai to carry out the installation of a system onboard a Naval ship. We used to generally stay near the Dockyard to facilitate ease of travel.
On a similar mission, my colleagues and I (around six of us) reached Mumbai on 24 Nov and checked into Suba Palace which was located about 300 Meters from the Taj Hotel. We finished the work and came back by 7 PM. My colleague suggested that we have dinner at Colaba Causeway at 8 PM. I requested him that we start at 8.30 as I was very tired and wanted to rest for a while. I freshened up but then changed my mind about the dinner time and felt that it would be better to have an early dinner and call it a day at the earliest and so told my colleague about it. Both of us set off and had dinner and came back to the hotel at about 9 PM. We had just crossed Leopold Café at around 8.30 after dinner and had I stuck to my dinner time of 8.30, this story would have probably been different. My children aged 8 and 15 at that point may have had to do without me also. I am lucky for that.
What followed later was something unforgettable
I watched the TV for some time and called it a day by 10.30 PM. I heard quite a few sirens on and off by that time. I wondered that there may have been a major accident somewhere nearby and possibly the casualties were being shifted. I also heard some kind of explosion nearby but could not make out anything. I dozed off and was woken up by 12 PM by the phone ringing. Instantly I knew that there must be some bad news and sure it was.
My colleague was on the phone and told me ‘Mumbai is under attack, Watch the TV. ‘ I switched on and saw the news. Nothing was clear, and we were only seeing some vague news. Sirens were still being heard. But by then we could understand that something serious had happened. I immediately messaged my family in Bangalore that ‘ I am safe, nothing to worry’ just to make sure that they do not panic. I did not want to wake them up at that hour. By then the blasts and sounds of shots were increasing as also the sound of ambulance sirens and police sirens. The tower of the Taj was on fire and the blaze was visible to me from my hotel window. I went numb with shock and was blank with no idea as to what was happening. We all kept on watching the TV endlessly. We could hear the real sound of shots first followed by the delayed sound on the TV a few seconds later. My mind went blank. Office folk and family started calling us frantically from Bangalore and we assured them that we were safe. But in the background, they could also hear the sound of the gunshots and blasts very clearly over the phone. We however sounded very calm so that they felt relieved. But they were witnessing on TV the total chaos which was unfolding in Mumbai, so I don’t know to what extent they were relieved, especially my kids.
This went on and on and we spent the whole day watching the TV, watching the ambulances and police vehicles go by. We could see people coming running frantically on the roads barefooted. We could not have any breakfast or lunch and just sat without knowing what to do. Late in the afternoon two of our senior officers who were also on official duty and staying in a hotel near Trident came walking down to our hotel knowing that we juniors were all stuck there. We discussed the situation and they informed us that it was worse near their hotel and they could not even get coffee/tea as all supplies to the hotel was cut off and the roads were fully blocked. The senior officer consulted the office in Bangalore and it was decided that we would try and get out of Mumbai at the earliest. By then the airport operations were also shut down with only limited flights available. We could manage to get the seats for a flight around 3 AM and immediately decided to go for it. Tickets were booked and next came to the question as to how to reach the airport. This was also somehow managed by a tour operator who offered a Tata Sumo with a heavy charge. We accepted the same without any second thought. We then started feeling slightly better and packed up our things. I and my colleague ventured out for dinner (only a bit of curd rice as nothing was available and we had lost all our appetite) at a close by hotel and could get the feel of the eerie calm of the city.
The driver reported as promised and we started from the hotel at around 1 AM and we were unsure of our journey until we reached the airport. But all was fine with God’s grace and we could board the flight and reach Bangalore safely.
The whole event happened in such a way that we were in complete shock. It was only after I returned home did I come to terms with the severity of this attack. The lack of sleep for two nights and lack of food had drained us both physically and mentally. The sight of the fire blazing from the Taj tower is still etched in my mind. The sound of sirens had caused such an impact on me that I could not bear to hear their sound for more than a year and would disturb so much. I could get over it only after a very long time. (The fact that Taj bounced back to its original is most satisfying)
At the end of it, when I look back at it, I can only wonder at this: why is it that we human beings are so dumb enough with the brains that we have, to use them for carrying out this kind of activity. There is this life that we have to live in this beautiful world with plenty of good things for each one of us to enjoy, but we ‘humans’ are horribly obsessed with hate, enmity, and whatnot. I wish we realize this before it is too late and we land up wiping ourselves out.
(The article has been authored by Prathibha. She is a senior executive at a Defence PSU. She has been working here for the past 30 years).
