Nov 26, 2013 10:26 PM
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(Updated Nov 27, 2013 05:28 AM)
“With money in their pockets Ajmal and Muzaffar went to the cinema and watched multiple showings of Sholay, A high-octane Bollywood thriller in which a veteran cop recruits two thieves, of them played by Amitabh Bachchan, to catch one of their own. In November 2007 they headed for Pakistan’s cantonment city of Rawalpindi to buy a gun, hoping to become fully fledged hoods.”
“My heart is telling me I should strangle this guy, here and now, ’ he hissed looking at the shivering prisoner, ‘but my brain is telling me that he is the only link to this open case’ Ever since Ajmal had been captured, voices all around Maria had proposed the old Mumbai story. One for the boys. He should be allowed to run before being shot. Some wanted to hang him, making it look like a suicide.’
‘…seemed to be giving a live TV interview. We are in a special part of the hotel on the first floor called the Chambers. There are more than 200 important people: business leaders and foreigners.’ ‘Pollack whispered to Anjali.‘ Can you believe it? This! Idiot is blabbing our exact location to CNN or something’
The extracts should surprise you like they startled me with their exactness and so unbelievably true narrative like it were real time. It appears as if the authors Cathy and Adrian were hanging around wearing an invisible cloak all through the 2 years of the planning and execution and the post incident developments.
The incident was monumental. The attack on the Taj of 26/11 was no ordinary terrorist attack. It was an attack planned with the precision of a country going to war with minimal human resources, limited ammunition and arriving in a Trojan Horse and then splitting to cause mammoth havoc in an innocent busy commercial city.
Having read two earlier books on the 26/11 incident “Mumbai Attacked“ by Harinder Baweja and 26/11 The attack on Mumbai which was a collection of articles and reports by journalists, I was curious to know what new perspective a couple of British journalists had to offer. I had also heard some of it first hand from a person close to the incident and had tried to live it through while writing an article on a particular segment of the incident. But the award winning British journalists surprised me with their utter attention to detail and drawing up an extremely realistic background to the events leading unto the actual attack.
It immediately strikes you that this is not a great work of English writing and is not completely flawless. I ignored the reference to Walkeshwar as Bandra on the map at the beginning of the book, though it got me worrying if the quality of the research was as bad. But then it settled in and had me in a vice like grip as the narrative raced from the jaw dropping detailing of the training of the terrorists, taking time to dwell into their backgrounds, tagging along with them as they step into Mumbai from the shores, watching a police force taken completely unawares by the multipronged attack, the internal power struggle, the red-tapism in face of a brutal attack on the nation, the shocking lapses in getting the professional fighting forces to ground zero, a few brave police inspectors who stepped into the hotel and battled it out alone with their revolvers, sympathizing with a general manager who slowly watches his family fade away from his life while talking to him on the phone, trapped in the hotel as the terrorists unleash fearsome cruelty.
You are shocked that this happens despite repeated warnings to the hotel to step up their security (put in by a police inspector in his study report) and he also happens to be the one to step into the Taj to fight the terrorists ill equipped. You live the three day life with the guests trapped who the authors turn into protagonists and you so will them to live, to change history, to perhaps to see emerge heroism of a different kind and hope to see the terrorists vanquished. But nothing of that sort happens and Ratan Tata watches his flagship hotel burn down. The authors do not flinch while providing details on the role of USA, as the story embarrassingly rolls out of their proactive warnings actually backed by the fact that the key conspirator of the whole episode Headley was their double agent. Many well to do Indians got into a spot for being friendly with a person who they knew nothing about, while he went about his reconnaissance to map the city for his masters in the neighboring country.
There are multiple tragic stories all focused more or less on TAJ and the authors make passing mention of the CST attack and of that on the seniors in the police who lost their lives. Had it not been a sad real life incident the book could have been applauded for being a gripping detailed thriller but unfortunately as Ahmed Rashid mentions “This book is for real.”
It is shocking and deeply moving as much as it will arouse the anger at the sheer incompetence of the various agencies involved, admiration for a staff that goes beyond call of duty to help their brethren and a need for media to relook at their role in such situations.
The book is simply unput downable. And It left me in deep admiration of the authors simply for the research that they painfully carried out and a deep sorrow for those involved in the attack and for who this day will not be easy to forget!
