I was sitting by the the swimming pool of the TAJ MAHAL hotel in Mumbai a bit more than 2 weeks ago when the terrorrist attacks began. I remember asking myself earlier that night if I shouldn't just relax in my room and laughing at myself for being so boring.
Right ...
All I had with me when I went down was my room card and a book on the Tibetan XIth century yoga master MILAREPA. Maybe Milarepa inspired me on that fateful night or maybe I simply got lucky, but it came very close. When I heard gunshots from inside the hotel and saw some panicked guests running around, I reacted instinctively before even fully realizing what was going on. I jumped on my feet (somehow picking up the book which was my only companion for the remainder of the night) and ran towards the inside of the Heritage building. As I ran I felt a strong pain in my lower left leg and I had to stop behind a corner, hardly able to walk anylonger. I manage to hide before the terrorrists could catch up and ended up spending the entire night hidden in a smaller boiler room (probably the least comfortable room in the entire hotel) with gunshots and explosions echoing all through the darkness.
Once things seemed to have calmed down on Thursday morning, I got out of the hotel on one leg without ever coming face to face with a terrorrist. Between the hospital, the police, the French embassy and the office it took me another 2 long days before I could finally be home with my family.
Was I scared ? I actually didn't have time to think about it at the beginning, everything happened so fast. The worst moment was afterwards when I kept thinking about the many ways in which things could have happened differently.
Was I lucky ? Definitely when you consider how many people lost their lives or the lives of close relatives. I read that a taxi driver dropped off his family at the Victoria Terminal and by the time he came back from parking his car, he saw 6 members of his family dying in front of his eyes. I feel like I got a very good deal, especially when I watched on TV the bodies being retrieved from the lobby, thinking I heard the shots which ended these lives.
There will definitely be a before and an after Mumbai. I'm already planning to go back to India which is one of my favourite countries in the world and no terror attack will change that. I'm also keen to finish this song I started so long ago, about empty violence and the hopes for better tomorrow, in memory of a long long night in the heart of the Taj Mahal.
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