Kartikey Sehgal

[The author visits the sites affected by terror and meets a Naval Officer.]

More about the incident: One, Two, Three

“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.

Her home falls on the route that the terrorists may have taken on their route to the Taj and café Leopold. Her husband is candid about the public outrage about the attacks.

“Just because it’s the Taj,” he pauses and adds calmly, “had it been just the C.S.T, the public would have reacted softly.”

He is fortunate that the unarmed building guard was not sighted and attacked by the gunmen. As I stepped into the building, the guard stopped me for inspection. He was wearing a bullet-proof jacket and carrying a loaded machine gun. His name is Surya Pratap Singh.

“I was given the jacket and the gun after the Taj Mahal and Trident-Oberoi siege. Earlier, I stood guard without a revolver.”

Surya Pratap is determined as he tells me about his anger. “How long will we see this madness? The people will protest today and tomorrow, politicians will start dividing the people on regional and religious grounds.”

Surya Pratap is despondent about politicians.
“We must attack the militant camps in Pakistan.”

A Police guard stopped me from going near hotel Taj Mahal.
“The President is coming.”

I waded through the traffic and felt that I am a better person to be near this iconic structure than any politician.  

Fortunately, the President had spared Oberoi-Trident any such embarrassment and allowed the citizens to marvel at the destruction. While the severely damaged portions were covered by the police, the people could watch broken windows and shattered glasses.

“I wonder if there is anybody upstairs and how that person must be feeling about Mumbai looking down from there,” said a lady while making photographs with her mobile camera.

I don’t know about the people up there, but somebody in the sky was surely smiling at the city. A sign of change? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

A smile formed by two stars and the moon

Does anybody stay here?

Broken Windows of Oberoi

Lone Tower of Taj

Suddenly Armed

From the Commander’s Window. Route to Terror?