In the Middle of it All...

I suppose everyone in Mumbai remembers where they were the night before last (26^th November). It is not likely that they are going to forget it soon. The events of that evening are very much going to be embedded in every Mumbaikar's memory for quite some time. The city is no stranger to terrorist attacks but this was extremely different from either 1993 or 2006. Some people are calling it 'India's 9/11'. It may very well be so but even if it wasn't called that, it was still an attack that I will recount for quite a few years with apprehension.

I had gone to meet someone in Prabhadevi that day and returned to the hostel around a quarter to nine. My hostel is located at the rear end of the St. Xavier's College campus which shares a boundary with Cama Hospital on one side. A small lane leading towards the Times of India office separates the campus from Rang Bhavan and G.T. Hospital on the other side. Walk down the road from the campus and you will reach the BMC Headquarters and V.T. Station. Walk in the opposite direction and you will come up to the Metro Cinema junction.

My roommate was supposed to leave Mumbai that night by a train from Dadar. Around a quarter past ten, he had just finished packing up everything and I was doing some insignificant work on my laptop when we suddenly heard a staccato of explosions in the direction of V.T. Station. Presuming them to be fireworks, I nonchalantly continued with my work when the explosions happened again. This time, I heard people screaming in the distance, prompting me to look out of the window. My window looks out towards V.T. but the view of the station is blocked by several buildings in between and all I could see was the dome of the station's heritage building. The explosions occurred again and this time, the tube-light in my brain flickered and I began to wonder if it was gunfire. My roommate looked worried but he was determined to leave and carried his luggage out, promising to give me a call once he reached Dadar station. As he left, I heard the gunfire once more and this time, the screams were all too clear.

Meanwhile, the sound of the shots had brought many of the hostelites into the corridor but there was no panic. On the contrary, most of us imagined that the perpetrators would be stopped quickly and there would be no way they would leave V.T. Within a few minutes however, one of the hostelites came out of his room and told us that this was a major operation and other places in South Bombay had been targeted as well. He had just received information that both the Taj and the Oberoi hotels had been attacked.

Puzzled and more than a little worried, I went to one of my friends' rooms and there I learnt that three of my friends had gone out and were known to be somewhere near Metro Cinema. Suddenly the gunfire occurred again. This time, it sounded a lot closer. All of us were getting quite excitable now and there were people running up and down the staircase and bursting into rooms trying to find out if everyone was in the hostel. A couple of bigger explosions suddenly took place and our building vibrated slightly from the impact. Some of us rushed to the terrace to see what was happening in spite of admonishments from the rest of us. My roommate called me and told me that he was coming back. A policeman had intercepted him and ordered him back into the hostel. Leaving his luggage with the security at the entrance, he came back to our room. The shots were loud and clear now and seemed to be coming from Cama Hospital. Another fairly big explosion shook the building again. We decided to switch off the lights and abandon all rooms at the back which faced Cama Hospital (including mine). Meanwhile there was no news from the three who had been stuck outside. We later learned that they had had a horrifying time trying to find shelter. The management at Metro Cinema were not letting them in while the police were trying to drive them away. They somehow managed to contact someone who had an apartment nearby and arrange for shelter there. Before they could leave however, the terrorists managed to reach Metro Cinema and an exchange took place between them and the police. Luckily, the three managed to escape unharmed and made their way to the apartment.

Back in the hostel, a few of us had gathered together in one room and were trying to find out what was happening. Our conversations were punctuated with explosion and sporadic gunfire. Those who had gone to the roof came back with a grisly tale of being witness to explosions tearing people apart in Cama Hospital next door. Then, one of the terrorists on the ground saw them and made as if to shoot them. The hostelites quickly abandoned the terrace and came down again to the relative safety of their rooms. Those of us who had gathered together kept looking out of our window, hoping not to see any terrorists on the campus. We kept getting calls from people frantic with terror, checking on us and asking us if we were safe. The hostel's General Secretary was busy trying to find out how many hostelites were outdoors. Meanwhile the terrorists had reached the narrow lane between the campus and GT Hospital and an altercation took place over there. Now the battle was truly happening all around us. Strangely none of us in the room were actually panicking. We were scared, no doubt, but not driven mindless. We kept our cool, continued talking in low voices and waited.

At last, around one in the morning, the gunfire ceased. We waited for another half-hour before concluding that whatever happened had ended, at least for now. We didn't know of course, that the Taj and Oberoi were still under attack (our hostel doesn't have cable tv and therefore, we couldn't check any news reports). Finally, around a quarter to two, I went back to my room and somehow drifted to sleep. I woke up again at around a quarter to six in the morning. The sky was turning a pale blue and dawn was not far off. I cautiously looked out of the window and I could make out several policemen on the roof of one of the buildings outside. I don't like giving in to dramatics a lot but as I munched an apple and watched the sun rise behind the dome of V.T. Station, I couldn't help feeling that it was an extremely unreal dawn. It was clearly going to be a long long day.

(Image: The view from the window of my room taken at approximately 6 AM on the day after the attack at VT Station. Please DO NOT reproduce this image anywhere without my prior permission)