One night in Mumbai

Blogger Amit Varma on the moments Mumbai's world came down in a hail of bullets and grenades

This is turning out to be one crazy night. A friend of mine had an opening of her art exhibition a few hours ago, so we ventured to South Bombay for that. We attended the exhibition, sipped the litchee juice, nibbled on party snacks, and then six of us headed out for dinner. First we tried Indigo Deli, which is a couple of hundred metres from the Taj. We were told there would be a 25-minute wait. So we headed to All Stir Fry, the restaurant in the Gordon House Hotel in a lane down from there. They told us we'd have to wait 20 minutes. We stepped out again, and as we did so, we heard gunshots, and saw people running towards us.

One of the hotel employees rushed out and told us to get back in. "There must have been an encounter," he said. "Get back in, you'll be safe inside."

We followed him in. We waited in the lounge bar upstairs for a while. The big screen there was showing cricket. India won. Then someone changed the channel.

That's when we realised that this was much more than a random police encounter, or a couple of gunshots. We heard that terrorists with AK-47s had opened fire outside Leopold's, the pub down the road. We heard there was firing elsewhere in the city as well, including in the Taj. We watched transfixed, and as the apparent scale of the incidents grew, we realised we couldn't go home. We asked if they had a room vacant; they did, so we settled in, and watched in horror.

I'm fine now, I suppose, in terms of physical safety. If I wasn't accompanied by the partner, and if three of the six of us weren't women (including one who is pregnant), I would have headed out to the Taj. But the area is cordoned off, and I don't have a Press pass anymore, so I'd probably have been turned away. A journalist friend of mine is outside the Taj, and speaking from her colleague's cell-phone - hers ran out of battery a while ago - she tells me that she is safe behind the army men who have now arrived on the scene. I hope that helps. I hope this is over soon.

Earlier today, I was working on a final polishing of my novel before it goes to press.

Now I wonder what's the point. The book will come out in April, and Bombay will be a different city then. This book was written in a Bombay before these attacks; it will come out in a Bombay after these attacks, and it somehow feels, as I sit here in the business centre of a boutique hotel a stone's throw away from mayhem, that it will be inadequate. It is a love story-and isn't that perverse?

But of course, I say that now, caught up in the moment, a little more emotional than I normally am. Maybe tomorrow it won't seem so bad. Maybe next week we shall be normal again, and life will go on as it always has. Maybe I'll come to Indigo Deli for dinner sometime, and when asked to wait 20 minutes, shall loiter in the pavement outside, enjoying the night air of this city I love so much. Maybe. Maybe not.

Update (10.25am): Right, I'm safe at home now. We hardly slept, and were told early in the morning by friends that a curfew was going to be imposed on the city, and if we wanted to leave for home, we'd better leave right away. The news mentioned that three terrorists were still on the loose in the city, and the Taj still burnt, but we stepped out anyway and made it back safely. We passed the Ramada and the Marriott on the way, perhaps taking the same route that one group of gunmen took last night on the way to Borivali, where gunfire was also reported.

Suddenly, what is familiar seems macabre.

The kind folk at the Gordon House Hotel did three important things for us last night.
One, they ushered us in when the gunshots began. Two, they got us a room for the night. Three, in the morning, they refused to accept payment for the room.

We left them a hefty tip out of gratitude, but I'm still in disbelief about their kindness. I often complain about the poor service in the hospitality industry in India, but never again. We passed Churchgate on our way home at about 8.45am. It was nowhere near as crowded as usual. But still there was a stream of people headed out, trooping off to work. This city did not sleep, I know. But it will not rest either.

Amit Varma runs the The India Uncut Blog (http://indiauncut.com/iublog)