Thursday morning I am disoriented. I am having coffee, I have had a night of broken sleep. I got up late. I am watching television in the morning. It is about what is happening at the Taj and the The Oberoi-Trident. But there is no coverage of Nariman House.
My wife is calling from Dubai. My brother is calling. My wife tells me, "Akshay send an sms every half an hour so that I know you are okay."
Now I know that there are terrorists in Nariman House. No one knew the Jewish angle before.
But I remember my watchman, who foolishly or maybe bravely had been running all around the place, tell me the night before: "Peeche bahut Jewish log hai, yahudi log hai. Unko pakra ha (There are a lot Jewish people living behind. They have caught them)." I felt awkward when he told me this then. Because on Indian soil conflicts are always between Hindus and Muslims. Jewish and Arabs on Indian soil? But then I remembered that where I come from when I open the paper every morning there is news of Arab-Jewish conflict. It seems too deja vu. But suddenly obviously it makes sense. It is a targeted killing.
Today, my mom still does not want to move. I am again wondering what to do. From the front side of my flat if I crane my neck, I can see Nariman House. I am watching the news. There is curfew in Colaba. I am confused about what to do. Ultimately, it dawns on me that we are too close for comfort. There is not a sound.
I look out of the window and I see a commando with a gun near the cars peering at Nariman House. I check with the liftman who says commandos have gone up onto the roof of Prem Bhavan. I think I will ask the commando, I saw, what the situation is. I go looking for him, but I cannot find him.
I am beginning to get angry. Sure, the NSG (National Security Guard) has laid their lives on the line to fight these terrorists, but they have also laid the lives of a hundred families. This is not the way for the NSG to operate. They must have somewhere in their policy manual the requirement to evacuate immediate residents. They could have sent us all to INS Kunjali and given us some tea and refreshments and told us to find our own way from there!
I have now decided that we have to get the hell out of this place. There is the Chinese family that owns Florence Beauty Parlour, who live in the next building at Satya Bhavan on the sixth floor. Mom and she take morning walks together and they are good friends. We phone them and they say we may come.
But mom still does not want to leave. We are arguing. I call a Gujarati family on the 6th floor at Prem Bhavan and we decide to go there for a social visit. It is just mom and me in the house and we have been arguing and are at an impasse. It seems a good idea to meet someone else. We have tea and coffee and there is a younger son and son-in-law in the house. It breaks the ice. It seems a good idea for us to be together. At this home is a 60-year old man who is on the adventurous side.
He suggests that we have a chat with the commandos. He takes me to the terrace -- Mistake No 3. There is no one there. He takes me to the pump house on the roof. I can now see the terrace of Nariman House. There is an eerie silence. I looked out and came right back. I realise by staying on at Prem Bhavan we are too close for comfort. How long will it take for a rocket grenade to land on this building?
Image: Residents being kept at bay near Nariman House | Photograph: Vaihayasi Pande Daniel
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