We salute the staff of the hotels that were attacked...the people who put the customer first and imbibed their professional duties in a personal moment such as this.
“It was around 9:30 p.m. that I heard gunshots, and when the firing didn’t stop I knew there had to be something bad hap- pening. We had at least 250 customers and we were told that the Harbour wasn’t safe. We immediately moved them to Wasabi on the first floor and seated them there. The crowd was basically peaceful but there were a number of women who were in tears. We did everything we could to help them. Eventually we moved the guests to Chambers in the new building, taking them through kitchens and service entrances to avoid the terrorists while we stayed in the pastry kitchen,” said Bertie Gomes, the senior-most bartender of Taj and the man behind the counter in Mumbai’s iconic Harbour bar.
It was the hotel’s famous chef, Banja, who even in such appalling hours made sandwiches for the guests in order to calm them. The chef eventually fell to the indiscriminate fire of bullets. And even in between the liberal spraying of bullets, the hotel receptionist stuck to his job and at tended to calls by troubled guests while advising them to stay indoors.
“In the Golden Dragon, which adjoins the Harbour bar, their manager Sameer Jalani showed incredible presence of mind and immediately ordered the guests to hide behind chairs and underneath tables, thus saving many lives or else they would’ve been sitting ducks as Golden Dragon has a glass door that can’t be locked,” said Bertie.
At the Oberoi, executive manager Paramjit Singh had gone out for a smoke when he heard the gunshots. “But he chose to go back into the hotel to save guests,” said an Oberoi operations executive. Their general manager, Mohit Nirula, went ahead to save the guests first and then got back to look after his family. Sanju Soni, the restaurant manager at Frangipani had the presence of mind to shut the door immediately after hearing the gunshots. “This saved all the guests who were present there,” said the operations staff.
Now as the world gazes on these two landmark properties that have, in the past few days, come to symbolise Mumbai, life for the hotel staff will get back to what it was, to take utmost care of their guests and look after their little needs with the greatest details, all behind a warm welcoming smile.
“It was around 9:30 p.m. that I heard gunshots, and when the firing didn’t stop I knew there had to be something bad hap- pening. We had at least 250 customers and we were told that the Harbour wasn’t safe. We immediately moved them to Wasabi on the first floor and seated them there. The crowd was basically peaceful but there were a number of women who were in tears. We did everything we could to help them. Eventually we moved the guests to Chambers in the new building, taking them through kitchens and service entrances to avoid the terrorists while we stayed in the pastry kitchen,” said Bertie Gomes, the senior-most bartender of Taj and the man behind the counter in Mumbai’s iconic Harbour bar.
It was the hotel’s famous chef, Banja, who even in such appalling hours made sandwiches for the guests in order to calm them. The chef eventually fell to the indiscriminate fire of bullets. And even in between the liberal spraying of bullets, the hotel receptionist stuck to his job and at tended to calls by troubled guests while advising them to stay indoors.
“In the Golden Dragon, which adjoins the Harbour bar, their manager Sameer Jalani showed incredible presence of mind and immediately ordered the guests to hide behind chairs and underneath tables, thus saving many lives or else they would’ve been sitting ducks as Golden Dragon has a glass door that can’t be locked,” said Bertie.
At the Oberoi, executive manager Paramjit Singh had gone out for a smoke when he heard the gunshots. “But he chose to go back into the hotel to save guests,” said an Oberoi operations executive. Their general manager, Mohit Nirula, went ahead to save the guests first and then got back to look after his family. Sanju Soni, the restaurant manager at Frangipani had the presence of mind to shut the door immediately after hearing the gunshots. “This saved all the guests who were present there,” said the operations staff.
Now as the world gazes on these two landmark properties that have, in the past few days, come to symbolise Mumbai, life for the hotel staff will get back to what it was, to take utmost care of their guests and look after their little needs with the greatest details, all behind a warm welcoming smile.
There can be few people who have braved the kind of tragedy Karambir Singh Kang has. In the recent Mumbai attacks, the Taj general manager went on to help others even as his wife and children couldn’t come away alive from their suite in the hotel. It was his mother’s words of courage that prodded him to fight back after watching his world blow into smithereens, he said.
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