Left wrong places at the right time

I was working for a software company in SEEPZ, Mumbai. I was the Vice President of Finance and Business Planning. My CEO and I went for a meeting with Chief General Manager of State of Bank of India. It was a bright beautiful day on March 12, 1993 and we left Seepz, Andheri at around 12.15 p.m. as we knew it would take at least an hour to get to Nariman Point/Colaba area. We reached SBI office at 1:15 p.m. and we just walked into the office of the Chief General Manager at approximately 1:30 p.m. When we were talking, we heard a very loud explosion that was deafening to the ears. We saw the glass windows behind the CGM’s office were breaking so badly.



CGM, my boss and I looked through the glass windows behind his office on the top floor of the building. We saw a thick cloud of smoke everywhere and we can’t even see the road or cars underneath. My gut told me that something was terribly wrong and told my boss that we would be better off leaving immediately to get back to Andheri. He agreed with me and we rushed outside to get into our car and driver Murugan immediately told us that there was a huge bomb blast in the Bombay Stock Exchange. Since he knew all the roads in Mumbai and an expert driver in Mumbai, we left to him to decide the choice of roads to him. From that time onwards, we had experienced one of the worst nightmares of us during that entire afternoon. Wherever we went in the car, there was a bomb blast and we had to take several diversions. On that particular day, we had crossed most of the 13 explosion spots and it took 5 hours for us to get back to Andheri. In the meantime, both our spouses called us to find our whereabouts because of the bomb blast and the office promptly told them that we were in Nariman Point/Colaba area. We did not have cell phones those days and hence until we reached back Andheri, we could not inform home about our safety.



The nightmare did not end at that point. The next day onwards, the Mumbai riots started and most people did not work for the entire 30 days of the riot period. Since we worked for a multi-national software company, we could not give any excuse to our American clients. We were driving to work every day hoping that we would return safely in the night. Many times, we had seen disturbing scenes on our way and pretended as though we had not seen them.


Then I migrated to the US in 1995 and worked for the same software company’s headquarters in the US. Since they sold their business in 2001, I decided to resign and I was serving notice period. Since I planned to be an independent consultant, I went to meet with a friend in New York on September 10, 2011. We both left towards the airport for our flights departing around 5:30 p.m., he was leaving for Chicago and I was leaving for Tampa. We got to the airport and my flight had some technical snag. After leaving the gate, the pilot decided to return to the gate since the passengers reported burning smell. They kept announcing the flight would leave in the next hour from 6:30 onwards until 10.30 p.m. Most of the passengers decided to cancel and return to stay in New York. My gut again told me to stick to the schedule to go back to Tampa. Finally, they announced departure at 11:30 p.m. and the flight landed in Tampa approximately at 2:30 a.m. in the morning on September 11, 2011.


The next day morning, I got up early and left for work at approximately 8:45 p.m. In the radio, they started reporting about the attack on World Trade Center. Later, I came to know that the US Government had requested all planes to be grounded within a few hours and shut down air traffic until further orders.

 

Raji,

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I know many who lived or living in Mumbai would relate to this story well.

Viswa

 

Dear RGS,

Thank you for your fb. May be His Blessings helped me to get out of trouble at the right time.

Viswa

 

Dear Strangerrr,

Thank you for your fb and sharing your experience. Even in that ordeal, the only satisfaction was how many cared for our welfare.

Viswa

 

Thank you for your kind words. I can't thank enough the IL members for their words of encouragement.

With kind regards

Viswa