On the night of 26/11, Fredric D’souza (name changed) was working at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s Shamiana restaurant. “I was taking an order when I heard firing,” says the steward, who still has nightmares of the incident, “I didn’t know what was happening. But there was no time to think. Within seconds the terrorists had entered the hotel and had started firing at the people. Some of my friends escaped to the lobby while I ran the other way, towards the basement.”
What was it that prompted him to do something different, “I guess it was my presence of mind. I guessed the terrorist wouldn’t come down to the basement,” he says. And without doubt, that’s what happened. The terrorists returned to the lobby and kept firing at the crowd, without bothering to go to the basement. There were over 500 people from the hotel who stayed in the basement all night, without the terrorists having even the faintest clue about their presence. Later in the morning, when the military came to rescue Fredric and the others, they urged them to walk through the lobby, “We refused.” Yet again his presence of mind helped, “Minutes after we refused to walk through the lobby and took the back entrance, we heard gunshots being fired in the lobby area itself. The terrorists had come down to the lobby and had opened fire at the Army.” It has been a year, but Fredric is no longer the same. “Today, Fredric is a more reserved person and is scared of the dark,”
says his wife.
— Anita Aikara
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