Within 5 minutes, we heard a huge blast and rushed to our windows. I stay on the 9th floor of Harbour Heights, Colaba, which faces the Taj Hotel and the sea adjacent
Eye witness
I work as an assistant director for a film production house in Mumbai. On Wednesday, I was just returning home after a song-recording session.
At about 9.00 pm, I caught a taxi from Churchgate station. By 9.10 pm I must have crossed that Koli opposite Badhwar Park from where the terrorists allegedly landed in Mumbai.
I must have reached home at around 9.15 pm, had a peaceful dinner with my family and was lazing around at 10.00 pm when my brother's telephone rang. He was told to switch on the TV. We did, and to our collective horror saw what was unfolding just a few meters away from home.
Within 5 minutes, we heard a huge blast and rushed to our windows. I stay on the 9th floor of Harbour Heights, Colaba, which faces the Taj Hotel and the sea adjacent. The Nariman house also can be seen from one of the bedroom windows.
What I saw next was a huge cloud of black smoke rising rapidly and I immediately identified it as coming from the petrol
station adjacent to Nariman House.
A few minutes more, and I could see smoke billowing from the Taj Hotel. We rushed to the TV screen to understand what was going on. I just couldn't believe we were in the thick of manic mayhem, of wanton murders.
I have always felt that though Colaba is one of the posh localities of Mumbai, the causeway stretch from where the shops begin to Sassoon docks is the most uninteresting with its small congested buildings and dingy lanes shooting off in all directions.
But suddenly, on Wednesday, the spotlights were switched on on one of those congested buildings near the photo-framing shops.
Some terrorists had entered Nariman House --- near the SBI ATM where I usually withdraw money --- and have taken its occupants as hostages. What a shock! Is this for real?
I and my family just kept watching our TV screen and the window when every bullet was fired, or when a bomb went off.
We just watched like numb spectators as the Taj Hotel caught fire more than once.
Since Wednesday night to now --- which is 3.00 pm Friday --- the sound of gunfire has been so intermittent I have learnt to draw my attention away from it. I have learnt to distinguish between gunfire and a grenade blast.
Nov 26-27
Terror lurking outside our corridors makes us uneasy at night, and our days are filled with worry and anxiety for the people trapped inside the Taj and Trident and Nariman House, and the officials trying to rescue them.
Nov 28
I woke up to the sound of choppers hovering over my head; I rushed to the window and saw commandos slithering down a rope from the copter to the building next to Nariman House. A lot of ammo was being lowered, too.
Suddenly, I empathised with the people in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq and all those places where children get used to watching gun-toting men, where grenade blasts are as normal as dog-bark.
Our prestigious hotels and hospitals attacked, our loved Cafes damaged, more than hundred of civilians dead and more then hundreds held, all this happening on the streets where I must have walked a thousand times.
When I walk out again, I will see the tell-tale bullet marks and the burnt portions of the Taj, I will feel the souls who had struggled against these hateful attacks, I will stare into the hatred-filled eyes of those who were responsible for causing this mayhem … I don't think I will ever feel safe in those stone-walled streets again.
As I write this, I hear more blasts and more gunfire. I wait to be released from this mind-numbing experience.
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