Undergraduate Witnesses Mumbai Attacks

Siddhant Singh ’11-’12 saw the roof of the Taj Mahal Hotel burst into flames from his YMCA hostel in Mumbai, just 100 yards away from the sites of the terrorist attacks last Wednesday. He spent the next two days under curfew, and did not leave his hostel. There, he ate two meals in two days because supplies were cut off and no food sellers were willing to come to the area.

“We’ve been holed up in this building for a couple of days now,” he said still under curfew on Saturday, describing what was a harrowing experience for a country and for Harvard students living in Mumbai.

Earlier Wednesday evening, on his way to a club with a friend, Singh walked by the Café Leopold, and heard that there been shooting there 30 seconds earlier.

“We were crossing by when that happened,” he said. “We ignored it and thought it was a drug deal gone foul.”

Singh and his friend thought the firing was normal gang or street violence, but when they heard a second firing, they got away as fast as they could.

“We didn’t look towards the cafe, we rolled and ran, and got the hell out of there,” he said.

Singh and his friend darted into the club they had initially planned to visit, and didn’t comprehend what they had witnessed for nearly 45 minutes.

“We walked right into the club, it was pretty weird,” he said. They had a drink and when they came out of the club for a breather, the owners closed the club, leaving Singh and his friend standing outside the entrance.

“The club owners closed the shutters behind us and we were just standing there looking stupid and exposed,” he said.

While they stood outside in the street, between 10 and 15 people dodged past them, running through the alley that led to the club.

“It seemed like something was after them,” Singh said.

The people screamed at Singh and his friend to leave.

“They were like ‘Get out of here’ in Hindi,” he said. “People in India like to watch. If they are running, they are in serious trouble.”

Singh jogged back to his hostel, and on his way, he saw ambulances and people with head wounds.

After he returned, he later saw the attacks on the Taj Mahal Hotel.

“There was a massive explosion that shook our chairs and smoke was billowing from the roof,” he said.

As the Taj erupted in flames, Singh and his friends immediately boarded up all the windows facing the street, and turned out the lights. They stayed up all night listening to the news and trying to talk about other things, like basketball, to get their minds off the gunfights outside.

Singh said that the terrorists were throwing grenades indiscriminately in the street and that any lit building could have drawn fire.

Singh said these attacks were particularly frightening because the gunmen were running around with AK-47s and were not suicide bombers.

The terrorists were dressed in “western casuals,” Singh said, which made him and his friends even more wary and determined to stay inside, because they were worried about being wrongfully targeted.

“We didn’t want to venture out because we might get shot by the police,” he said.

Singh said that as he sat in the hostel watching the news, what he saw was “horribly sensationalist,” as reports came in that as many as 15 locations had been targeted.

“We heard there was fresh firing here, fresh firing there,” he said. “We knew it wasn’t true because we were there.”

Singh, who has spent the last five months in Mumbai and has made many friends during his stay, said that he is keeping perspective, but some of his friends are having a more difficult time coping.

“A bunch of us are in shock,” he said.

On strict orders from his mother, Singh flew to Delhi a few days later to be with his family.

A WEDDING GOES ON

Kunal Raygor ’10 was in India during the terrorist attacks for his cousin’s wedding in Mumbai, supposed to take place two days later. The family was concerned that the wedding would not happen, since the wedding hall was just 15 minutes from most of the attacks, but in the end, Raygor said they were able to have the event with out a hitch.

The morning of the wedding, after Raygor and his father, cousins, and uncle had finished setting up for the event, they decided to visit the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels to assess the damage.

“There were a lot of media people and bystanders interested in seeing what was going on and how things ended up,” he said.

Raygor could see burn marks on the sides of the hotels, and shattered glass was everywhere. Firefighters were till dousing areas of the building that were still smoking.

“Large portions of the building were charred and black, and we could tell there had been a fire,” he said. “Tons of windows were blown open.”

Raygor said it was seeing the damage in real life that brought it all home. He said that India must be very careful about how it responds to this tragedy. “There needs to be more of a cooperation,” he said. “Taking too hard of a stance is like positive feedback—it will just lead to more of the same.”