Helping Trident in its time of agony

The Trident hotel on Mumbai's tony Marine Drive is not alone in its time of agony. Nearby hotels have thrown open their hearts, rooms and kitchens, to help out.

Pankaj Jain, food and beverages manager at the neighbouring New Marine Plaza said his hotel had distributed around 100 food packets on Thursday night to the commandos, cops and families waiting outside Trident hotel.

On Friday too, Jain said, they have kept food ready in the banquet hall for the evacuees from Trident and relatives waiting outside. "We are all in the same line of work," he said, "It could have so easily happened to us."

Some of the New Marine Plaza's employees are ex-employees of Trident, and Jain said we all get out and meet up some time, "so we are all like friends." "The staff from Trident, whenever they come out, they would come here, etc."

The New Marine Plaza has also not taken any new bookings, keeping the empty rooms on an informal stand-by in case it were needed by any of the Trident's evacuees. Unless the general manager gives the go-ahead, we won't take in any new guests, Jain said.

At the Trident itself, an informal kind of cordon is in place, formed by the staff and the security men.

At the nearby Hotel Inter-Continental, too, the Trident's plight has had a fallout, in the sense that security has been visibly beefed up, with bag checks in place. This may upset people who are from out of town and unused to the checks, but this sure is a sign of the times we live in.