He had an AK-47

I have reached home. Safe. As I walked in and locked up the house again, I sent up a prayer of thanks. For being alive. For not being dead. For being unhurt. For being safe. I'm not likely to forget the night of November 26, 2008 in a hurry. I'm not certain I will ever.

My account may not be accurate. I am still trying to make sense of the confusion that prevailed and trying to come to terms with what happened. It still hasn't sunk in.

When I first heard the bullets, it was probably about 9.30 pm. I don't know for sure. Sitting up in the air-conditioned third floor of my office, the Times Of India building opposite VT station, I, like everyone else, was puzzled. "Its shooting," said a reporter.

I assumed the police were chasing a criminal, and continued to work. I had a page to send off and a deadline to stick to. But more and more of my colleagues started lining the office's tinted windows. People are running out of VT station, said a colleague. People are running everywhere.

But when I peeped out 10 minutes later, the roads were deserted. Cars were lying abandoned on the road. I saw one car hurriedly reverse and flee. I still wasn't uneasy. Just curious.

Reporters and photographers took off. "There's firing happening at Colaba," said a colleague. "Its all moving this side. Trouble."

When things started happening, they happened fast. There was a small boom, a faraway muffled sound. Bomb? No. Too mild to be a bomb. But something was up. But what? Five minutes later, another boom. Also muffled. But much closer. Very much closer. Then came the bullets. Each of them fired with a loud "thuck". Thuck. Thuck. Thuck. Thuck.

We ran to the windows. What the f**k was happening? VT station was deserted. We could just about see inside. No one. Except for two people.

Two boys came into view, sauntering past the tall open windows at the station. They wore jeans and dark t-shirts. They carried huge bagpacks slung on their shoulders. When they reached the foot of the staircase that led to the footbridge outside the station, they turned. And faced the windows. They had guns in their hands. Big guns. Rifles. Holy f**k. "Get down!" is all I remember my boss yelling. But I was already backing away from the window. So was everyone else. A second later, they were firing at our building, the staccatto "thuck-thuck-thuck" of the bullets loud and clear. Luckily for us, they didn't shoot up on the third floor. Luckily the security guards at TOI's entrances had shut the doors and pulled the shutters down.

The next two hours were a blur. I still worked on my page. We brought out the edition. I worked in a haze.

But plenty happened. One of our photographers ran back in and later managed to get the first clear shot of one of the two terrorists. The picture is imprinted at the back of my eyes. A young boy walking across the footbridge, the bag slung over his shoulder, wielding an AK-47 in hand. Bloodlust in his eyes. The hint of a demonic grin or a grimace of pain and hatred on his face. The look of death. They said he was barely 20. He didn't look older than 16.

All this while, news channels had kept up a continuous stream of the madness and chaos that was being unleashed in the city. Terrorists taking over the beautiful old Taj Hotel at Gateway of India. There were eight blasts there. There's a fire on the fifth floor. The terrorists have taken people hostage. The enounter's still on, at the time when I wrote this.

A similar situation at the Trident/Oberoi. A gunbattle outside Metro theatre where I saw the most bloodshed. But the inside of VT station was no better. Another two terrorists managed to flee in, of all the things, a police jeep! They soon switched to a Skoda and had reached Girgaum (on Marine Drive) when they were gunned down.

The two boys who caused the bloodbath at VT station are probably the same ones still holed up at Cama hospital, with some hostages.

Utter. Total. Panic. Madness. Chaos.

And blood.

We stayed up all night in office, trying to search within ourselves a reason to explain this... this depth of depravity... the intense rage... those eyes... he didn't look older than 16...




As of this moment, between 80 to 100 people have died in the terrorist attack. Three of them are Mumbai's top policemen and included Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare. About 250 people have been injured. The encounters at Taj and Trident/Oberoi hotels are still on. There are unconfirmed reports that Cama hospital has been cleared.