26/11 And After – My Story During Mumbai’s Deadliest Terror Attack

In 2008, I was living my dream job. I worked at The Times of India, the country’s most popular paper and wrote weekly features for a section called Times Review. I was a rookie with just a couple of years of experience and worked under Manu Joseph, who is now the author of three novels. I learnt a lot from my team that consisted of junior and senior writers like Meena Iyer (currently editor of DNA’s entertainment section), Ketan Tanna (features editor of Free Press Journal) and Mohammed Wajihuddin who still works for the Times of India.

26/11/2008

On 26/11, a promising lead for a story in Juhu made me pack my bags and take the Harbour line train from CST to Vile Parle around 8 PM. By the time I reached my destination, CST Terminus would have seen the worst of the bloodshed and the iconic photo of Ajmal Kasab would have been clicked by Mumbai Mirror photo editor Sebastian D’Souza and Times photographer Shriram Vernekar.

The night of 26/11 was a mangled mess of misinformation and breaking news that slowly began to form the cohesive version of a group of Pakistani terrorists waging a senseless war on innocent citizens of my city.  I was in two minds whether I should go to work the following day but a text from office enquiring my whereabouts sealed the deal and I joined the news team in the Times of India office trying to piece together all the news stories that were coming in. I did not see any of the live stories that were happening at Taj Mahal hotel but one story caught my eye.

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27/11/2008

Encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar, along with Ashok Kamte and Hemant Karkare, had been shot dead a few feet from the Times office near the Cama and Albless hospital. Even worse, the terrorists had dumped their bodies on the road and fled towards Metro junction. I had spoken with Salaskar just a few months before for a Times Review story about what encounter specialists were doing after their heydays were over. It was the first time a death felt personal and the gravity of the attacks took on a new meaning.

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28/11/2008

The next day, I was asked to go to Taj and cover the last remaining terrorists. By this time, most of the other spots like Nariman House and Trident hotel had been neutralized but the terrorists at Taj were throwing everything they had inside the hotel. The media had been cordoned off into a corner near the Gateway of India from where we could see the burning dome of the Heritage Tower that firefighters were trying to douse even as the hostilities were ongoing between our commandos and the terrorists.

Much more disturbingly, I could also see hordes of onlookers trying to glimpse the ongoings after watching most of the terror attacks live on television. This form of disaster tourism was new to me and I was happy to have a job to do and not indulge these onlookers who were asking anyone with a badge or an uniform for more information.

29/11/2008 Onwards

The terror attacks had stopped but the news cycle had only just begun. While the news of the attack on the city itself had occupied much coverage over three days, the focus now shifted to survivors and security failures. I was asked to do a story on the survivors at Bombay Hospital. The Times Press ID ensured that I had a list of survivors and access to speak to anyone I wanted inside the premises.

It was during this time that I saw the real impact of the attack that has changed Mumbai forever. People in bandages, some in unnatural positions to save their limbs and some others who were still reeling from the shock and shooting darting eyes at me. I wondered if I would be able to do any kind of story.

I remember speaking with injured NSG commandos who were recounting the incident with clear-eyed memory even as one of the commando’s eyes would well up with blood every few minutes. The Taj attack was one of the deadliest they had ever encountered they said, including the times they’ve served at Kashmir.

Slowly, I inched myself forward to those who had escaped with relatively minor injuries and were more amenable to talk. After speaking to some of these people, I saw a couple of elderly white women in hospital and went up to speak with them.

I was especially taken with Linda Oristale, a 49-year-old children’s books illustrator.  It’s a conversation I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Her own horrific account of the attack at Trident brought back the ferocity of the attack but the sheer positivity and good-naturedness of the duo was a pleasant experience in a hospital full of terror victims. Oristale insisted over and over that no attack (she called it an execution – not an attack) would dampen her love for India and she was already looking forward to her next trip to the country once her healing was completed. Her friend Andaline Vaoagta was even more optimistic and was adamant about running the marathon in the city despite having taken a bullet in her thigh.

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Post The Attacks

 For a few months after the events of 26/11, my productivity plummeted. My boss quit and joined as editor of Open Magazine. The sub-prime crisis in the US had blown into a worldwide recession and jobs were being chopped off. I had trouble concentrating at work and couldn’t churn out stories with the same depth or even the frequency with which the news desk wanted. My dream job was suddenly 

I left The Times of India in March 2009 and a couple of weeks later I was on the road. I did not exactly plan any particular route but eventually I spent almost a month in northern Maharashtra going everywhere from Chandrapur to Aurangabad. It was tough because of the general elections that I had not factored in and also because I made all the typical mistakes a first-time backpacker usually makes. Yet, when I returned home I knew that the travel had not only changed but also cured me of the mental block that I was suffering since 26/11. And so when someone says travel is a transformative experience, I can relate to it personally.

Further Reading: 

My story about the injured NSG commandos can be read here. You can read Oristale’s story I’d written here. Here’s another story I wrote as editor of MensXP referencing the attacks. The encounter specialist feature can be read here. 

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