Monday, 29 December 2008

Barbados

Barbados Court Attempts To Have Closed Bail Hearings For Arrested Journalists
Power Of Numbers Prevails As Barbados Court Opens To The Public
On Monday, a Barbados judge changed an earlier decision to have a closed bail hearing for the two freelance journalists arrested last Saturday when they tried to take photographs of a police officer charged with dealing in cocaine. (See Nation stories: Journalists Show Support & Media Close Ranks)
Despite the fact that only “some” family and media colleagues were allowed into the court, this was a stunning victory by the dozens of local news media people who showed up to support freelancers Cherie Pitt and Jimmy Gittens. It just shows what can happen when a few determined people challenge the system and say “This is wrong.”
Barbados Courts Often Operate In Secret, Closed Hearings
It may surprise our foreign readership to learn that here on Barbados, people are often brought before the closed courts where what happens is kept from the public. Judges on this island will order their court closed on the flimsiest of excuses so charges can be processed, dropped or negotiated to resolutions that would disturb the citizens if they only knew.
Transcripts of proceddings are seldom available even to lawyers - let alone to the media or public. Many “hearings” happen in the judges’ chambers where deals are sometimes made to “quietly let things fade away.”
The Barbados news media has often been part of such coverups and it is not uncommon for stories to just drop off the news media radar at the same time that deals are done in closed courts. Nothing is ever said again and the media remains quiet.
But the news media were not willing to let that happen on Monday with two of their own being dragged before a “closed to the public” court. They pushed, used their numbers and their power and the judge soon decided that the “public interest” required an open process in an open court.
We Have Two Messages For Members of the “Professional” Barbados Media
1. Congratulations on pressuring the judge to have an open process in an open court.
2. Why hasn’t the media made an issue of closed court hearings before? Why only when two of your own are before the court? Has the “professional” Barbados journalism community now decided that this abuse by judges in closing public courts should be addressed in the public interest? Will we see such professional interest the next time a Barbados judge closes a courtroom to the media and the public?
Or, is it as we suspect - that the fight to have an open and transparent Barbados justice system is only a media cause when journalists are before the courts?
The “professional” Barbados media has much to atone for with the Bajan public
11 Comments
RRRickyDecember 24, 2008 at 4:00 am
This is a powerful article BFP. The media does have much to atone for but they have been trapped by habits of subservience that were passed from generation to generation.
reality checkDecember 24, 2008 at 4:56 am
subservience and years of intimidation and fear exercised by those elected and unelected officials who should know better.
freedom and justice are a constant challenge for all citizens not a one time event for abused journalists.
Hasn’t the CJ reached retirement age? and hasn’t the DPP long since demonstrated he is unfit for the job?
anonDecember 24, 2008 at 5:11 am
BFP, Lord Nelson will get down off his stand and walk down Broad Street before the Bajan “journalists” do such again.
This is all self interest. Once this case goes away then it will be business as usual for Bajan “journalists.”
What is happening to these Bajan “journalists” has been happening to citizens of this country for years and the Bajan “journalists’ could not care less.
Serves them right!
Lazy bunch!
Ian BourneDecember 24, 2008 at 11:19 am
This item was very true - As I see it, both sides are guilty, the media for not ensuring Police are sticking to their duty by co-operating too often in hopes of a scoop; and Police having a double standard for videoing or photographing a suspect regardless of affiliation (cops used to call CBC say “COME NOW” to get footage of a suspect, I am sure it still happens - but this was one of their own)…
But Jimmy and Cherie are victims of circumstance each trying to score a buck as they are freelance and thus ensuring their livelihood and also obeying instructions.
Both sides need to adhere to their original tenets of their job, less complicated.
Lady AnonDecember 24, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Ironic, isn’t it?
Journalists won’t report on closed court hearings until it concerns one of their own…Police allow photographs of accused until it concerns one of their own.
What goes around comes around.
Barbados the BeautifulDecember 24, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Let’s hear why the judge wanted to close the court at first. Was it so that they could punish Cherie and Jimmy without anybody watching? Maybe to avoid the court and police being embarrassed by the charges which are not even real?
And if the press were allowed into the court when are we going to get a report about what happened? if we don’t then the press and court are squashing down freedom of the press and cozying up.
The press are supposed to be on our side reporting everything that happens in court every day not just what the court wants them to tell.
Best opportunity yet for the reporters to show what they are supposed to do.
Global Voices Online » Barbados: Journalists Appear in Court December 24, 2008 at 2:18 pm
[...] Barbados Free Press is keeping an eye on the case of the two arrested journalists, calling the open court hearing “a stunning victory by the dozens of local news media people who showed up to support”, while at the same time denouncing local mainstream media for not making an issue of closed court hearings before. Posted by Janine Mendes-Franco Print version Share This [...]
Knight of the Long KnivesDecember 24, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Interesting comments by Ian Bourne on the police calling jounalist to “come now”. It continues to impress me that he posts seemingly without fear of repercussions. I also know of cases where people have called the Nation to get their pictures removed from the court pages in some of those cases that are adjourned and never heard from again. Meanwhile the police continue to humiliate and harass ordinary taxpayers and so called journalist continue to look the other way on corruption at the highest levels.
Knight of the Long KnivesDecember 24, 2008 at 3:38 pm
…and before I forget Merry Christmas to all the posters and moderators. Lets hope for a corruption free 2009 so we don’t have so much to talk about (rabbits can dream…).
RohanDecember 24, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Ironic, isn’t it?
Journalists won’t report on closed court hearings until it concerns one of their own…Police allow photographs of accused until it concerns one of their own.
What goes around comes around.*******
Great point Lady Anon
De OriginalDecember 26, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I think we need let this case run it’s course before the courts. I still have hope in the system. I look forward to seeing this situation resolved in a just fashion. I am one Bajan who believe that the system still works. I think all the hype is another way of the journalists who as BFP so rightly said dont report fair and honest, to misrepresent the facts and blow this situation outta hand…..
Seasons Greetings to the Moderators and posters.

posted by Jeyapalan.T.S.Mahesan {jeyapalantsmahesan.blogspot.com}
Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 09:15 0 comments

Friday, 26 December 2008

Apologies for sending a second email


From: I Am Three <bleedinghands@gmail.com>
To: jeyapalanmahesan@netscape.net
Sent: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 5:49 am
Subject: Apologies for sending a second email
































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Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 07:32 1 comments

Malaysia for 2009

The Winter Solstice is considered one of the most powerful
times of the year by many cultures around the world.
In the Northern Hemisphere
this celestial event usually occurs on December 21st.
The timing of the solstice this year was
Sunday, December 21, at 7:04 a.m. EST,
4:04 a.m. PST, or 12:04 p.m. Universal Time.
The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year,
and it heralds the initial impulse of the annual return of
the Sun, the Light, to the Earth.
This year the spiritual effects of the solstice
will be more powerful than ever before.
This is due to the incredible influx of Light
that is pouring into the planet through
the heartfelt pleas of people everywhere.
Humanity is experiencing the most intensified
purging of the economic system,
the various other social structures that do not
operate with a consciousness of the highest good
for all concerned, that we have ever endured.
This is a necessary cleansing that is paving
the way for the physical manifestation of the patterns of perfection for the New Earth.
The difficult part of this process is that
the masses of Humanity do not see the bigger picture.
Millions of people see only the painful situations
that are happening in their lives.
As a result of this limited perception,
they feel overwhelmed and hopeless.
This is very hard to observe, but it is not all bad.
We became so numb to the discord in our lives
that we just muddled through our Earthly experiences
accepting mediocrity as a natural state of being.
We fell into the terrible habit of using pain as our motivator.
Unless we were writhing in agony,
we did not feel that it would help to take action or
to ask for assistance from our Father-Mother God.
For millions of people on Earth,
prayer and an invocation for Light from
The Divine occurs only
when they are brought to their knees by their life situations.
This is exactly what is happening at this time
for millions of people all over the world. The Universe is revealing to us
now that more people than ever before
are reaching a critical moment in their life experiences.
Consequently, millions of people are asking Divine Intervention.
Many of them are praying for the very first time.
This powerful event,
has created the greatest influx of Light
the Earth has ever experienced during a Winter Solstice.
This powerful event began to manifest itself August,1998
When we were BLACKEYED.
This powerful event completed its manifestation in Malaysia 080308.
This Heavenly assistance will greatly empower
the patterns of perfection for the New Earth,
and it will accelerate
our individual hopes and dreams by leaps and bounds.
This event will pave the way for a Victorious New Year.
2009 is going to be a year of miraculous changes.
These changes have been in the works for quite some time,
and now we are going to experience them tangibly in the world of form.
These changes will not happen by chance.
They will occur through the unified efforts of all of us
There are a lot of dire predictions regarding the global economy
and the challenges Humanity is going through,
but we are not the victims of circumstance.
We are the co-creators of our Earthly experiences.
If we do not like the way things are going in our lives,
we have the ability to change our circumstances.
This is what we have been preparing for aeons to accomplish,
and now is the time.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
2009 numerically is an 11 year.
Eleven is the master number that reflects
the transformation of the physical into the Divine.
The archetypes for the patterns of perfection for
the New Earth were securely anchored
into the physical plane in August 2008.
In 2009, through our creative faculties of
thought and feeling,
we will expand these patterns into our daily experiences.
The purging and cleansing of the obsolete behavior patterns
that have caused the maladies existing in Humanity’s lives will continue.
But the wonderful news is,
as these old archetypes crumble away,
the expansion of the patterns of perfection
for the New Earth will begin to manifest in ways
that will bring joy, fulfillment and great expectations
into the hearts and minds of people everywhere.
There is a new sense of hope flooding
through the hearts of people all over this Land/Bumi
Humanity’s hope is magnetizing Legions of Light
from the Realms of Perfection
into the atmosphere of Earth
in ways we have never experienced.
The Divine Intent of these Messengers of The Divine
is to assist Malaysians to move quickly
through the cleansing process
so that the bliss of the New Earth will manifest
in the twinkling of an eye.
2009 is going to be whatever we co-create together.
Do not let this opportunity pass you by.
Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
New Age Study of Humanity's Purposea 501 (c)
3 nonprofit educational organization
{unashamedly modified by The Phoenix Foundation}


posted by Jeyapalan.T.S.Mahesan {jeyapalantsmahesan.blogspot.com}
Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 06:40 0 comments

Thursday, 25 December 2008

Malaysia - Ancient Kumari Kandam Civilization ?















According to Oppenheimer, the Southeast-Asian Atlantis, provisionally called Sundaland because it now is the Sunda shelf, was the world leader in the Neolithic Revolution (start of agriculture), using stones for grinding wild grains as early as 24,000 ago, more than ten thousand years older than in Egypt or Palestine.
Before and especially during the gradual flooding of their lowland, the Sundalanders spread out to neighbouring lands: the Asian mainland including China, India and Mesopotamia, and the island world from Madagascar to the Philippines and New Guinea, whence they later colonized Polynesia as far as Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand.
Oppenheimer aligns with the archaeologists against the linguists in the controversy about the homeland of the Austronesian language family (Malay, Tagalog, Maori, Malgasy etc.):he locates it in Sundaland and its upper regions which now make up the coasts of the Southeast-Asian countries, whereas most linguists maintain that southern China was the land of origin.
Part of the argument concerns chronology:
Oppenheimer proposes a higher chronology than Peter Bellwood and other out-of-China theorists.
My experience with IE studies makes me favour a higher chronology, for new findings (e.g. that pre-IE peoples like the Pelasgians and the Etruscans, not to speak of the Harappans, turn out to have been earlier Aryan settlers) have consistently been pushing the date of the fragmentation of PIE back into the past.
Another reason for not relying too much on the theories of the linguists is that Austronesian linguistics is a very demanding field, comprising the study of hundreds of small languages most of which have no literature, so the number of genuine experts is far smaller than in the case of IE, and even in the latter case linguists are nowhere near a consensus on the homeland question.
Linguistic evidence is very soft evidence, and usually the data admit of more than one historical reconstruction, so I don’t think there is any compelling evidence against a Sundaland homeland hypothesis.
Conversely, archaeological and genetic evidence in favour of the spread of the Austronesian-speaking populations from Sundaland seems to be sufficient.
It is quite certain that some of these Austronesians must have landed in India, some on their way to Madagascar, some to stay and mix with the natives.
Hence the presence of some Austronesian words in Indian languages of all families, most prominently ayi/bayi,mother (as in the Marathi girls names Tarabai, Lakshmi-bai etc.), or words for "bamboo", "fruit", "honey".
More spectacularly, linguists like Isidore Dyen have discerned a considerable common vocabulary in the core lexicon of Austronesian and Indo-European, including pronouns, numerals (e.g. Malay-" dua, two") and terms for the elements.
Oppenheimer doesnt go into this question, but diehard invasionists might use his findings to suggest an Aryan invasion into India not from the northwest, but from the southeast.
But he does mention the legend of Manu Vaivasvata saving his company from the flood and sailing up the rivers of India to settle high and dry in Saptasindhu.
Clearly, the origins of Vedic civilization are related to the post-Glacial flood, probably the single biggest migration trigger in human history.
The Tamils have a tradition that their poets academy or Sangam existed for ten thousand years, and that its seat (along with the entire Tamil capital) had to be moved thrice because of the rising sea level.
They also believe that their country once stretched far to the south, including Sri Lanka and the Maledives, a lost Tamil continent called Kumarikhandam.
If these legends turn out to match the geological evidence quite neatly, our academics would be wrong to dismiss them as figments of the imagination.
But the Indian or Kumarikhandam counterpart to Oppenheimer’s book on Sundaland has yet to be written.
This indeed is probably the most important practical conclusion to be drawn from this book: extend India’s history by thousands of years with the exploration of now-submarine population centres.
Another language family originating in some part of Sundaland was Austro-Asiatic, which includes the Mon-Khmer languages in Indochina (its demographic point of gravity being Vietnam) but also Nicobarese and the Munda languages of Chotanagpur, at one time possibly spoken throughout the Ganga basin.
It is the Mundas who brought rice cultivation from Southeast Asia to the Ganga basin, whence it reached the Indus Valley towards the end of the Harappan age (ca. 2300 BC).
In this connection, it is worth noting that Oppenheimer confirms that ?barley cultivation was developed in the Indus Valley (p.19), barley being the favourite crop of the Vedic Aryans (yava).
Unlike the Mundas who brought rice cultivation from eastern India and ultimately from Southeast Asia to northwestern India, and unlike the Indo-European Kurgan people whose invasion into Europe can be followed by means of traces of the crops they imported (esp. millet), the Vedic Aryans simply used the native produce.
This doesn’t prove but certainly supports the suspicion that the Aryans were native to the Indus Valley.
Concerning the political polemic, the usual claim that the caste system with its sharp discrimination was instituted by the invading Aryans to entrench their supremacy is countered by the finding that even the most isolated tribes on India’s hills turn out to have strict endogamy rules, often guarded with more severe punishments for inter-tribal love affairs than exist in Sanskritic-Hindu society.
Here, Oppenheimer confirms that in the Austro-Asiatic and Austrone-sian tribal societies, where many of India?s tribals originate, inequality is deeply entrenched: Yet the class structure which cripples Britain more than any other European state, is as nothing compared with the stratified hierarchies in Austronesian traditional societies from Madagascar through Bali to Samoa.
This consciousness of rank is thus clearly not something that was only picked up by Austronesian societies from later Indian influence.(p.484)
Social hierarchy is not a racialist imposition by the Aryans, but a near-universal phenomenon especially pronounced among Indo-Pacific societies including most non-Aryan populations.
Stephen Oppenheimer makes a very detailed and very strong case for the importance of the culture of sunken Sundaland for the later cultures in the wide surroundings.
India too certainly benefited of certain achievements imported from there.
What is yet missing is a similar study for the equally important and likewise neglected culture of the sunken lands outside India's coast.
Dr. Koenraad Elst, 2002.

posted by Jeyapalan.T.S.Mahesan {jeyapalantsmahesan.blogspot.com}
Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 16:33 0 comments

Kumari Kandam - Lost Civilization of The East


Kumari Kandam is the name of a legendary sunken landmass said to have been located to the south of present-day Kanyakumari District at the southern tip of India in the Indian Ocean.
The legend assigns the continent and its final submergence an antiquity ranging in tens of thousands of years.
There are scattered references in Sangam literature, such as Kalittokai 104, to how the sea took the land of the Pandiyan kings, upon which they conquered new lands to replace those they had lost.[5]
There are also references to the rivers Pahruli and Kumari, that are said to have flowed in a now-submerged land.[6]
The Silappadhikaram, a 5th century epic, stating that the the "cruel sea" took the Panidyan land that lay between the rivers Pahruli and the many-mountained banks of the Kumari, to replace which the Pandiyan king conquered lands belonging to the Chola and Chera kings (Maturaikkandam, verses 17-22).
Adiyarkkunallar, a 12th century commentator on the epic, explains this reference by saying that there was once a land to the south of the present-day Kanyakumari , which stretched for 700 kavatams from the Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the south.
This land was divided into 49 nadu, or territories, which he names as :
seven coconut territories (elutenga natu),
seven Madurai territories (elumaturai natu),
seven old sandy territories (elumunpalai natu),
seven new sandy territories (elupinpalai natu),
seven mountain territories (elukunra natu),
seven eastern coastal territories (elukunakarai natu) and
seven dwarf-palm territories (elukurumpanai natu).
All these lands, he says, together with the many-mountained land that began with Kumarikollam, with forests and habitations, were submerged by the sea.[6].
Two these Nadus or territories were supposedly parts of present-day Kollam and Kanyakumari districts.
None of these texts name the land "Kumarikkandam" or "Kumarinadu", as is common today.
The only similar pre-modern reference is to a "Kumarikandam" { as the legendary land is called in modern Tamil), which is named in the mediaeval Tamil text "Kantapuranam" either as being one of the nine continents, [7], or one of the nine divisions of India and the only region not to be inhabited by barbarians.[8]
19th and 20th Tamil revivalist movements, however, came to apply the name to the legendary territories described in Adiyarkkunallar's commentary to the Silappadhikaram.[9]
They also associated this territory with the legend of the Tamil Sangams, and said that the fabled cities of southern Madurai and Kapatapuram where the first two Sangams were said to be held were located on Kumarikkandam.
In modern Dravidian ethnic nationalist literature, Kumari Kandam or "Lemuria" (a name made up in the 19th century to account for discontinuities in biogeography) was the "cradle of civilization", the origin of human languages in general and the Tamil language in particular.
These ideas gained notability in Tamil academic literature over the first decades of the 20th century, and were popularized by the Tanittamil Iyakkam, notably by self-taught Dravidologist Devaneya Pavanar, who held that all languages on earth were merely corrupted Tamil dialects.
R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project of the Government of Tamilnadu, in 1991 claimed to have deciphered the Indus script as Tamil, following the methodology recommended by his teacher Devaneya Pavanar, presenting the following timeline (cited after Mahadevan 2002):
ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of "the Tamilian or Homo Dravida",
ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language
50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation
20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation
16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged
6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Tamilnadu.
1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest extant Tamil grammar)
Mathivanan uses "Aryan Invasion" rhetoric to account for the fall of this civilization:
"After imbibing the mania of the Aryan culture of destroying the enemy and their habitats, the Dravidians developed a new avenging and destructive war approach. This induced them to ruin the forts and cities of their own brethren out of enmity".
Mathivanan claims his interpretation of history is validated by the discovery of the "Jaffna seal", a seal bearing a Tamil-Brahmi inscription assigned by its excavators to the 3rd century BC (but claimed by Mathivanan to date to 1600 BC).
A supposed map is available which shows a large land mass in the Indian Ocean stretching from Madagascar and East Africa in the West to Southeast Asia and Malaysia in the East.

posted by Jeyapalan.T.S.Mahesan {jeyapalantsmahesan.blogspot.com}
Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 14:42 2 comments

I cannot resist this, EVEN I am DEAD tired!



Link: http://jkwy.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-cannot-resist-this-even-i-am-dead.html

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Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 14:04 0 comments

Science and Maths in English ..... when will these LaoHuaqi...


Post: Science and Maths in English ..... when will these LaoHuaqiao 老華僑 ever learn ...
Link: http://jedi-knightstemplar.blogspot.com/2008/12/science-and-maths-in-english-when-will.html

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Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 14:03 0 comments

Tamils in Malaysia-The Yin and Yang ... 阴阳



Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 14:03 0 comments

The Vicious Cycle of Malaysian Politics


Link: http://sakmongkol.blogspot.com/2008/12/vicious-cycle-of-malaysian-politics.html

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Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 14:01 0 comments

English medium, Malay medium, spritual medium


Link: http://theenglishcottage.blogspot.com/2008/12/english-medium-malay-medium-spritual.html

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Monday, 15 December 2008

Heartwarming & gut-wrenching account from 26/11 survivo



8-)

Sent: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 6:38 pm
Subject: FW: Heartwarming & gut-wrenching

 
 
 
 
 
Michael Pollack, 12.01.08, 07:40 PM EST
.
 
My story begins innocuously, with a dinner reservation in a world-class hotel. It ends 12 hours later after the Indian army freed us.

 
My point is not to sensationalize events. It is to express my gratitude and pay tribute to the staff of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, who sacrificed their lives so that we could survive. They, along with the Indian army, are the true heroes that emerged from this tragedy.
 
My wife, Anjali, and I were married in the Taj's Crystal Ballroom. Her parents were married there, too, and so were Shiv and Reshma, the couple with whom we had dinner plans. In fact, my wife and Reshma, both Bombay girls, grew up hanging out and partying the night away there and at the Oberoi Hotel, another terrorist target.

 
The four of us arrived at the Taj around 9:30 p.m. for dinner at the Golden Dragon, one of the better Chinese restaurants in Mumbai. We were a little early, and our table wasn't ready. So we walked next door to the Harbour Bar and had barely begun to enjoy our beers when the host told us our table was ready. We decided to stay and finish our drinks.

 
Thirty seconds later, we heard what sounded like a heavy tray smashing to the ground. This was followed by 20 or 30 similar sounds and then absolute silence. We crouched behind a table just feet away from what we now knew were gunmen. Terrorists had stormed the lobby and were firing indiscriminately.

 
We tried to break the glass window in front of us with a chair, but it wouldn't budge. The Harbour Bar's hostess, who had remained at her post, motioned to us that it was safe to make a run for the stairwell. She mentioned, in passing, that there was a dead body right outside in the corridor. We believe this courageous woman was murdered after we ran away.

 
(We later learned that minutes after we climbed the stairs, terrorists came into the Harbour Bar, shot everyone who was there and executed those next door at the Golden Dragon. The staff there was equally brave, locking their patrons into a basement wine cellar to protect them. But the terrorists managed to break through and lob in grenades that killed everyone in the basement.)

 
We took refuge in the small office of the kitchen of another restaurant, Wasabi, on the second floor. Its chef and staff served the four of us food and drink and even apologized for the inconvenience we were suffering.

 
Through text messaging, e-mail on BlackBerrys and a small TV in the office, we realized the full extent of the terrorist attack on Mumbai. We figured we were in a secure place for the moment. There was also no way out.

 
At around 11:30 p.m., the kitchen went silent. We took a massive wooden table and pushed it up against the door, turned off all the lights and hid. All of the kitchen workers remained outside; not one staff member had run.
 
The terrorists repeatedly slammed against our door. We heard them ask the chef in Hindi if anyone was inside the office. He responded calmly: "No one is in there. It's empty." That is the second time the Taj staff saved our lives.

 
After about 20 minutes, other staff members escorted us down a corridor to an area called The Chambers, a members-only area of the hotel. There were about 250 people in six rooms. Inside, the staff was serving sandwiches and alcohol. People were nervous, but cautiously optimistic. We were told The Chambers was the safest place we could be because the army was now guarding its two entrances and the streets were still dangerous. There had been attacks at a major railway station and a hospital.

 
But then, a member of parliament phoned into a live newscast and let the world know that hundreds of people--including CEOs, foreigners and members of parliament--were "secure and safe in The Chambers together." Adding to the escalating tension and chaos was the fact that, via text and cellphone, we knew that the dome of the Taj was on fire and that it could move downward.
 
At around 2 a.m., the staff attempted an evacuation. We all lined up to head down a dark fire escape exit. But after five minutes, grenade blasts and automatic weapon fire pierced the air. A mad stampede ensued to get out of the stairwell and take cover back inside The Chambers.

 
After that near-miss, my wife and I decided we should hide in different rooms. While we hoped to be together at the end, our primary obligation was to our children. We wanted to keep one parent alive. Because I am American and my wife is Indian, and news reports said the terrorists were targeting U.S. and U.K. nationals, I believed I would further endanger her life if we were together in a hostage situation.
 
So when we ran back to The Chambers I hid in a toilet stall with a floor-to-ceiling door and my wife stayed with our friends, who fled to a large room across the hall.
 
For the next seven hours, I lay in the fetal position, keeping in touch with Anjali via BlackBerry. I was joined in the stall by Joe, a Nigerian national with a U.S. green card. I managed to get in touch with the FBI, and several agents gave me status updates throughout the night.

 
I cannot even begin to explain the level of adrenaline running through my system at this point. It was this hyper-aware state where every sound, every smell, every piece of information was ultra-acute, analyzed and processed so that we could make the best decisions and maximize the odds of survival.
 
Was the fire above us life-threatening? What floor was it on? Were the commandos near us, or were they terrorists? Why is it so quiet? Did the commandos survive? If the terrorists come into the bathroom and to the door, when they fire in, how can I make my body as small as possible? If Joe gets killed before me in this situation, how can I throw his body on mine to barricade the door? If the Indian commandos liberate the rest in the other room, how will they know where I am? Do the terrorists have suicide vests? Will the roof stand? How can I make sure the FBI knows where Anjali and I are? When is it safe to stand up and attempt to urinate?
 
Meanwhile, Anjali and the others were across the corridor in a mass of people lying on the floor and clinging to each other. People barely moved for seven hours, and for the last three hours they felt it was too unsafe to even text. While I was tucked behind a couple walls of marble and granite in my toilet stall, she was feet from bullets flying back and forth. After our failed evacuation, most of the people in the fire escape stairwell and many staff members who attempted to protect the guests were shot and killed.
 
The 10 minutes around 2:30 a.m. were the most frightening. Rather than the back-and-forth of gunfire, we just heard single, punctuated shots. We later learned that the terrorists went along a different corridor of The Chambers, room by room, and systematically executed everyone: women, elderly, Muslims, Hindus, foreigners. A group huddled next to Anjali was devout Bori Muslims who would have been slaughtered just like everyone else, had the terrorists gone into their room. Everyone was in deep prayer and most, Anjali included, had accepted that their lives were likely over. It was terrorism in its purest form. No one was spared.
 
The next five hours were filled with the sounds of an intense grenade/gun battle between the Indian commandos and the terrorists. It was fought in darkness; each side was trying to outflank the other.
 
By the time dawn broke, the commandos had successfully secured our corridor. A young commando led out the people packed into Anjali's room. When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave, the commando replied: "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear. The first bullets have to go through me."
 
The corridor was laced with broken glass and bullet casings. Every table was turned over or destroyed. The ceilings and walls were littered with hundreds of bullet holes. Blood stains were everywhere, though, fortunately, there were no dead bodies to be seen.
 
A few minutes after Anjali had vacated, Joe and I peeked out of our stall. We saw multiple commandos and smiled widely. I had lost my right shoe while sprinting to the toilet so I grabbed a sheet from the floor, wrapped it around my foot and proceeded to walk over the debris to the hotel lobby.

 
Anjali and I embraced for the first time in seven hours in the Taj's ground floor entrance. I didn't know whether she was dead or injured because we hadn't been able to text for the past three hours.
 
I wanted to take a picture of us on my BlackBerry, but Anjali wanted us to get out of there before doing anything.

 
She was right--our ordeal wasn't completely over. A large bus pulled up in front of the Taj to collect us and, just about as it was fully loaded, gunfire erupted again. The terrorists were still alive and firing automatic weapons at the bus. Anjali was the last to get on the bus, and she eventually escaped in our friend's car. I ducked under some concrete barriers for cover and wound up the subject of photos that were later splashed across the media. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance came and drove a few of us to safety. An hour later, Anjali and I were again reunited at her parents' home. Our Thanksgiving had just gained a lot more meaning.
 
Some may say our survival was due to random luck, others might credit divine intervention. But 72 hours removed from these events, I can assure you only one thing: Far fewer people would have survived if it weren't for the extreme selflessness shown by the Taj staff, who organized us, catered to us and then, in the end, literally died for us.

 
They complemented the extreme bravery and courage of the Indian commandos, who, in a pitch-black setting and unfamiliar, tightly packed terrain, valiantly held the terrorists at bay.

 
It is also amazing that, out of our entire group, not one person screamed or panicked. There was an eerie but quiet calm that pervaded--one more thing that got us all out alive. Even people in adjacent rooms, who were being executed, kept silent.

 
It is much easier to destroy than to build, yet somehow humanity has managed to build far more than it has ever destroyed. Likewise, in a period of crisis, it is much easier to find faults and failings rather than to celebrate the good deeds. It is now time to commemorate our heroes.

 
Michael Pollack is a general partner of Glenhill Capital, a firm he co-founded in 2001
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
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--
Madhu Menon
Communicator - Environment & Development
Anala Outdoors
28 Sanskar II, Polytechnic Road Ahmedabad 380015 India
Phone:079-26442289
Telefax:079-26561359
Mobile:0-9426300078
url www.analaoutdoors.com



--
Surekha
 
Posted by The Phoenix Foundation at 06:44 0 comments
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