I walked into the Delhi high court (HC) premises just two, maybe three minutes before a deafening bang ripped through the morning air. For a few stunned seconds it was almost surreal. The noise left me deaf and everything seemed to slow down to a lazy haze.
I had broken from my usual practice of using gate number 7 and chose to use gate number 5 when the blast ripped through the reception centre and tore into flesh and metal in a nanosecond. This was my second escape from a bomb attack. In May this year, when authorities chanced upon a dud bomb, I had taken the day off.
For most of us journalists covering the Delhi HC, Wednesday is an important day in the week. This is the day when the rush of people clutching their public interest petitions come to the HC hoping that the court would take cognisance of their myriad pleas in the belief that they would get justice.
The auto driver told me that he would not be able to go to gate number 7, my usual entry into the beautiful building adjacent to Delhi’s Gallery of Modern Art. I was in a hurry and I asked him to head towards gate number 5 even though the guards posted there were not familiar with me.
Like hundreds of others, I also missed the briefcase that was kept near the reception centre where hopefuls gather to get a pink pass that will allow them entry into the portals of the court. I slipped in at 10.15am, just minutes before my world turned into a gruesome haze.
The next few seconds were a bit confusing. Some say that the blast occurred at 10.17am. Some say at 10.21am. A few even claim it was actually at 10.12am. This fascination for detail is confounding and compelling, but perhaps critical to our ability o grasp what has happened. These details make us human and make sense of the carnage that I witnessed.
I choked, and I coughed. I was engulfed in smoke, unable to see anything. As I walked through the dense smoke I began to see pieces of flesh lying all around me. Hoarse cries rent the air. I saw the first bodies lying in a haphazard mess, piled up and strewn - an ugly and tragic mosaic.
A senior citizen, Balram (I got to know his name later), was lying in his own pool of blood, dazed and stunned, minus a hand. Another litigant, Rahul Gupta, told me that he was in the queue when the blast occurred but failed to hear it. None of it made any sense to me. But then, a terrorist attack rarely does.
Soon lawyers, led by the president of the Delhi HC Bar Association, AS Chandhok, rushed out to help the injured as ambulances screamed their way into the dirty lane that has seen major excavations than any other in the last few months.
A heavy drizzle began soon after and the smoke began to clear. That is when I set eyes on the carnage, the scale and scope of the death and destruction that the terrorists had left behind.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}