The Hindu Business Line : Of daring escapes and devastating deaths

Mumbai, Dec. 1 Emotional stories of daring escapes and devastating deaths continue to haunt the city, as it grasped at strains of normalcy, like getting back to work on Monday, after the brazen terrorist attacks of the week gone by.

Belgian business-man Mr Quentin Lamarche and his wife, Ms Tateana, escaped by the skin of their teeth, after the firing started in the Trident (Oberoi). But Mr Bhisham Mansukahni, who was at a wedding party at the old Taj Mahal hotel, found himself in the thick of the siege for 12 hours.

Others remember, with fondness and sadness, people who had touched their lives, like Ms Rupinder Randhawa, a teacher at B.D. Somani International School, who fell victim to the terror-attack. Or the several chefs at the Taj, as the attackers came in through the kitchen. And in still other cases, some people were still missing.

Safe, but not elated

Terror had laid its hands on the rich and famous, on teachers, hotel-staff, police-men, fire-fighting personnel, commandos and several ordinary people. Despite having got out alive, after being through a night of terror at the old Taj, Mr Mansukhani is not elated. “At the end of it, I am blank,” he says, still shocked at the massacre that the city had witnessed.

But Mr Mansukhani did not stop praising “some of them kids” (referring to hotel staff), who kept reassuring the guests, without breaking down or worrying about their own safety. He is, however, concerned about the wounded Taj employee, Mr Rajan, who they watched over till they were finally rescued.

For 28-year-old Mr Lamarche and his wife, it was a dash for life, as they ran down from the “20th floor, in five minutes”, he says. Mr Lamarche is on a one-year project with his company Umicore, a materials technology group, and has been living with his wife at the Trident for the last one month.

“When we heard the shooting, we thought it was a late-Diwali or fire-works,” he told Business Line, a constant refrain from survivors who mistook the gun-shots for crackers.

But when the blast went off, they realised it was more serious and ran down from the 20th floor. In the rush, Mr Lamarche just about had time to put on “jeans and shoes”, he said, adding that he could not take his mobile phone.

Student’s pride

A parent of a 20-year-old, remembers B.D. Somani’s Ms Randhawa, as a “warm, committed and dedicated teacher”. The teacher who was at a restaurant in the Taj for dinner, fell to the gunmen’s bullets, even as they were being shifted, possibly to another safe place or to be freed, said the parent. And for Ms Randhawa, despite being in college, the young man is a little shaken. He had not expected this to happen to his “encouraging” teacher, whom he rated as one of the best.

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