Saved by a whisker, nay a day and 1 hour!!

I had gone to Mumbai for a training program last week. The program was scheduled on 24th-25th November, and I left for home on 25th night itself, reaching home on 27th morning. It's chilling to think what would have been the case if the program had started one day later, meaning which I would have left Mumbai on 26th night. Yes 26th November 2008 night, when all hell broke loose in Mumbai!! I learnt about the blasts across Mumbai and the shooting in VT, when I was preparing to get down at Tatanagar while on my way back home. I was shell shocked by the daring shown in the attacks at first, although I had no way of getting to know the details as the time was 12 o'clock in the night. I considered myself lucky to have got out in the nick of time. If I had to get out the day after, there could have been all sorts of problems. The first incident of shooting started at around 9.20 pm, by which time I would have already boarded my train. But then a shooting at VT would have ensured that all the train services would have been thrown out of gear, and we could have been stuck somewhere without a way of getting out...Lucky me!! Even if we accept that the risk to my life was not very great on hindsight, there is no overlooking the fact that the return journey would have been one hell of a journey, I don't know when I would have reached home. As it was, I was home in good time and the first thing I did was take stock of the situation. The situation as I found out was much worse than I could have imagined. The terrorists as I found out have unleashed a reign of terror across Mumbai, and the endgames were being played out at two luxury hotels and one building which housed a Jewish center. But more about that later, right now I am just relieved to be back home without facing any problems, but at the same time concerned for all the people who are caught up in the shootouts.