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Native Cleveland journalist covers Mumbai terror
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By Susan H. Kahn
Assistant Editor
Our son’s brief e-mail on Wed., Nov. 26, was of the good news/bad news variety. Jeremy, a 34-year-old freelance journalist, and his wife Victoria, a British foreign service officer, live in New Delhi, India. Assuming we had heard news of a terror attack in Mumbai, he first assured us that he and Victoria were safe. Then he wrote that he was heading into the fray.
The preceding evening, Jeremy had received a text message from a colleague alerting him that a gun battle was taking place in Mumbai. When he found no mention of this on the TV news, he went to bed thinking the disturbance was merely a turf war between rival street gangs.
But at 3:30 a.m. he was awakened by a call from The New York Times foreign desk asking him to help cover what was now recognized as a terrorist attack unfolding in India’s financial capital. He quickly packed and headed to the airport. By late afternoon Nov. 27, he arrived in Mumbai.
“It was a little daunting,” admits the Shaker Heights native, who had never been to Mumbai before. “The city was locked down, absolutely everything was closed, there was no one on the street.”
After dropping his bag at a hotel near those hotels under siege, he grabbed his notebook and, unable to find a cab, set off on foot. By chance, he encountered a Belgian man who had escaped from Café Leopold, site of one of the 10 terrorist attacks.
“He told me this amazing story about how a waiter helped him and 14 other diners on the second floor of the restaurant get into an air conditioning shaft after the shooting began below,” says Jeremy. “The firing stopped, and they waited a bit before emerging.”
Late on the second night of the siege, Jeremy had a poignant encounter. He interviewed a woman outside the Oberoi Hotel who was waiting for her husband. Mumbai natives, the couple had been celebrating a birthday in a hotel restaurant when the terrorists entered the lobby and began shooting. In the confusion, the woman and her husband became separated. She escaped the building, but he did not. Eight hours had passed and he did not answered his cell phone (“Mumbai’s Longest Night, With an Abyss of Terror,” New York Times, Nov. 28, www.ny times.com/2008/11/28/world/asia)
“Reporting on the terror and the carnage was difficult,” says Jeremy. “In the first 48 hours, I probably got six hours of sleep and had little to eat. I was living on roasted peanuts, bananas and bottled water.”
With respecy to newsgathering, Indian authorities were not very forthcoming, he says. There were impromptu press conferences, but Indian TV crews crowded in close, plying the source(s) with questions in Hindi and other Indian languages.
“Mu best break came just after Indian forces cleared the Oberoi Hotel. I slipped onto a bus carrying six of the evacuees – the staff thought I was another hotel guest.” I was able to interview everyone on the bus as they drove to a new hotel.”
Although he was evicted as soon as the bus stopped, he got a good story (“Counting the Hours in Room 2324,” New York Times, Nov. 29, www.ny times.com/2008/11/29/world/asia).
Jeremy also talked his way into a hospital morgue. He was trying to find out if the coroner could tell how early in the siege the six Jewish hostages in Nariman Chabad House had been shot.
“The morgue was gruesome; there were a lot of dead bodies, and some of he wounds were horrific,” Jeremy relates. “And the smell … I can’t tell you how nauseating that was.”
When I talked to Jeremy on Dec. 1, he was still in Mumbai, working on a story about the Jewish community’s reaction to the attack on the Chabad house. Nearly all of India’s 4,000-plus Jews live in Mumbai, (“Jews of Mumbai Reconcider Their Existance,” New York Times, Dec. 3, www.nytimes.com/ 2008/12/3/world/asia).
“The Jewish community has been here for thousands of years. They’ve lived among Muslims and never been singled out for violence,” he says. “Now some people don’t want to talk. They are fearful of being identified as Jews.”
However, that the terrorists seemed to be “equal opportunity murderers” who killed randomly. “They killed Muslims in the train station first. They killed rich and poor alike.”
Another Jewish Cleveland native was also in Mumbai to report on the attack. Daniel Pepper, 28, son of Linda Tobin and Dr. Stephen Pepper of Cleveland Heights, covered the incidents for The Guardian, a London newspaper. Pepper, who is also based in New Delhi, could not be reached this week because he is traveling in a remote part of India.
skahn@cjn.org
The preceding evening, Jeremy had received a text message from a colleague alerting him that a gun battle was taking place in Mumbai. When he found no mention of this on the TV news, he went to bed thinking the disturbance was merely a turf war between rival street gangs.
But at 3:30 a.m. he was awakened by a call from The New York Times foreign desk asking him to help cover what was now recognized as a terrorist attack unfolding in India’s financial capital. He quickly packed and headed to the airport. By late afternoon Nov. 27, he arrived in Mumbai.
“It was a little daunting,” admits the Shaker Heights native, who had never been to Mumbai before. “The city was locked down, absolutely everything was closed, there was no one on the street.”
After dropping his bag at a hotel near those hotels under siege, he grabbed his notebook and, unable to find a cab, set off on foot. By chance, he encountered a Belgian man who had escaped from Café Leopold, site of one of the 10 terrorist attacks.
“He told me this amazing story about how a waiter helped him and 14 other diners on the second floor of the restaurant get into an air conditioning shaft after the shooting began below,” says Jeremy. “The firing stopped, and they waited a bit before emerging.”
Late on the second night of the siege, Jeremy had a poignant encounter. He interviewed a woman outside the Oberoi Hotel who was waiting for her husband. Mumbai natives, the couple had been celebrating a birthday in a hotel restaurant when the terrorists entered the lobby and began shooting. In the confusion, the woman and her husband became separated. She escaped the building, but he did not. Eight hours had passed and he did not answered his cell phone (“Mumbai’s Longest Night, With an Abyss of Terror,” New York Times, Nov. 28, www.ny times.com/2008/11/28/world/asia)
“Reporting on the terror and the carnage was difficult,” says Jeremy. “In the first 48 hours, I probably got six hours of sleep and had little to eat. I was living on roasted peanuts, bananas and bottled water.”
With respecy to newsgathering, Indian authorities were not very forthcoming, he says. There were impromptu press conferences, but Indian TV crews crowded in close, plying the source(s) with questions in Hindi and other Indian languages.
“Mu best break came just after Indian forces cleared the Oberoi Hotel. I slipped onto a bus carrying six of the evacuees – the staff thought I was another hotel guest.” I was able to interview everyone on the bus as they drove to a new hotel.”
Although he was evicted as soon as the bus stopped, he got a good story (“Counting the Hours in Room 2324,” New York Times, Nov. 29, www.ny times.com/2008/11/29/world/asia).
Jeremy also talked his way into a hospital morgue. He was trying to find out if the coroner could tell how early in the siege the six Jewish hostages in Nariman Chabad House had been shot.
“The morgue was gruesome; there were a lot of dead bodies, and some of he wounds were horrific,” Jeremy relates. “And the smell … I can’t tell you how nauseating that was.”
When I talked to Jeremy on Dec. 1, he was still in Mumbai, working on a story about the Jewish community’s reaction to the attack on the Chabad house. Nearly all of India’s 4,000-plus Jews live in Mumbai, (“Jews of Mumbai Reconcider Their Existance,” New York Times, Dec. 3, www.nytimes.com/ 2008/12/3/world/asia).
“The Jewish community has been here for thousands of years. They’ve lived among Muslims and never been singled out for violence,” he says. “Now some people don’t want to talk. They are fearful of being identified as Jews.”
However, that the terrorists seemed to be “equal opportunity murderers” who killed randomly. “They killed Muslims in the train station first. They killed rich and poor alike.”
Another Jewish Cleveland native was also in Mumbai to report on the attack. Daniel Pepper, 28, son of Linda Tobin and Dr. Stephen Pepper of Cleveland Heights, covered the incidents for The Guardian, a London newspaper. Pepper, who is also based in New Delhi, could not be reached this week because he is traveling in a remote part of India.
skahn@cjn.org
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| Local expats pained by attack in Mumbai |
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pflevin247 wrote on Dec 5, 2008 3:57 PM: