The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

The Taj Mahal hotel is lonesome at night. The Gateway of India is sealed. Only gunmen patrol the area. Stray visitors are asked to move away quickly.

The lonesome Taj does not reflect the resplendent mood described in newspapers and magazines, when the 105 years old luxurious hotel re-started its services.

The gunmen are still and wary. They ask me to not go near the Gateway and to hurry with my walk along the area.

Kartikey Sehgal

[The author visits the sites affected by terror and meets some security personnel.]

“I could hear the blasts all night long. I shut the windows and bolted the doors. After all, they had just passed the lanes near my home. They could have come to this building and taken entire residents as hostages.”

She is the wife of an Indian Naval Commander who missed her husband on the night terrorists attacked Mumbai at various places.