When I set off for Mumbai on November 21 I had no idea what was in store for me in the coming days. As usual I was staying at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. I was joined a couple of days later by Bob Carnell, a Briton, Peter Dillane, an American and Finbarr O’Driscoll, an Irishman, all senior directors of Kerry Foods. They all had rooms on the fifth floor and, unusually I was on the third floor. Normally I was given a suite on the sixth floor – the change was to prove one of a series of providential blessings.

The purpose of the trip was to introduce Kerry Foods to the great business opportunities that India had to offer. But I wanted to be cautious with my colleagues, so rather than risk any food poisoning, I decided we would use the various restaurants in the Taj where I could count on the quality. But to ring the changes, I asked my brother, Abbas, who lives in Mumbai to bring in some good, typical Muslim food from a trusted caterer on Tuesday November 25. He called later and said the caterers could not manage on Tuesday, so would Wednesday November 26 be alright? I said that would be fine and cancelled my reservation at Taj’s Zodiac Grill, reputed to be the best in India and situated on the ground floor. There is no doubt that the change of date saved our lives.
That evening after our meal, I escorted my friend and colleague Finbarr O’Driscoll, who lives in America, down to the lobby as he had decided to switch to an earlier flight via Singapore. I had booked his car to the airport for nine pm and accompanied him downstairs. We chatted for a while before seeing him off. I have stayed at the Taj for 28 years and invariably bump into someone I know in the lobby, and stop for a chat – some say I talk too much. But that evening I saw no one and took the lift back up to my floor. As my hand reached out to open my door at precisely 9.26 pm I heard the crackle of what could only have been gunfire in the lobby.

Two members of staff on duty immediately told me to get into my room as it was definitely shooting and not firecrackers from an over exuberant wedding party. At that stage we assumed it was just an argument between two rival groups. Ten minutes later we got a call from the switchboard operator confirming that the hotel was under attack from terrorists.
She told me to stay in my room and barricade the door with all the furniture we could move. We were told to turn off the lights and to keep our voices down. We were trapped – my brother, Abbas, Bob Carnell, Peter Dillane, two of my Mumbai directors, Esmail Mithaiwalla, Arif Bandukwalla, and I.
The gunmen were on the rampage through the hotel corridors apparently looking in particular for people with British or American passports – which included most of the people in my suite. The terrorists had burst into the lobby firing indiscriminately and gone straight to the Zodiac dining room where we would have been sitting and killed everyone in sight.
Finbarr meanwhile was totally oblivious and only found out what had happened when he called us from Singapore. Again one must be grateful that he had chosen to take the earlier flight, otherwise we both might have been down in the lobby when the attack started.
We were on the third floor and could hear the gunfire and blasts all around us. Incredibly, I was still getting calls from the hotel staff who remained at their posts throughout – it was an act of bravery which would cost some of them their lives before the ordeal was over. They warned me to put wet towels at the door to keep out the smoke which was now billowing through the hotel and beginning to choke us as it swept under the door despite our efforts. The air conditioning had been turned off to stop the flames from spreading. I asked the operator why the commandos could not come up and rescue us but she explained that they were pinned down in the lobby.

As my hand reached out to open my door at precisely 9.26 pm I heard the crackle of what could only have been gunfire in the lobby.

Suddenly around midnight, there was a huge explosion. It was like an earthquake which rocked the whole building and started a fire on the other side of the hotel. Another two blasts went off – one of them cracked one of our windows. Peter and I were about to open the door to investigate but something made me look through the peephole first. What I saw terrified me. My suite was right at the end of the corridor which gave me a clear line of sight. Racing towards me, hammering on the doors were two men brandishing AK-47 guns. For some reason they didn’t stop at our room; we were in a darker corner and the advice to keep our lights turned off probably saved us for the second time that night.
Soon the telephones and TV were also cut off but our mobiles were working and throughout the night I received calls from my daughters and sons-in-law at home in London who were watching in horror as the whole event unfolded before their eyes on satellite television – they could even identify the floor and windows where we were trapped. While we were suffering from the smoke, they could actually see the flames spreading through the building. It had clearly been the aim of the terrorists to bring down much of the hotel. Every time I rang off, I wondered whether it was the last time I would speak to my wife and daughters. Without letting my colleagues know I wrote a note to my family telling them what they should do in case I was killed, wrapped it in a shower cap to prevent it being smudged by my own blood and hid it in my hip pocket.
From the window we could see bodies being carried out on stretchers and the emergency services at work. The temperature in the room was rising and there was nothing to do expect whisper quietly among ourselves. Fortunately we were together in the room. If we had been trapped in our rooms alone it would have been unbearable not knowing whether we were all still alive.

I would be a liar if I were to say I was not frightened. I had had several near misses in my life escaping death when I crashed my motorbike as a young man of 22, and emerged without a scratch; when a plane I was flying in caught fire and was forced to make an emergency landing in Baghdad in 1974; when my taxi driver was injured in 1993 when a bomb went off once again near the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai and now this. Perhaps I am becoming a dangerous travelling companion. But this was no laughing matter and as dawn broke, with the shooting still going on we began waving from our windows. We dared not shout in case we attracted the attention of the gunmen.
Finally at seven o’clock the fire–brigade were able to get a cage up to our floor. In a situation like this everyone wants the others to go first, but I pushed my brother, Bob Carnell and my two other executives, Esmail and Arif, into the cage. When the crane came back up, Peter and I stepped into the cage. Then I looked up and saw an elderly man – English or American – waving from a sixth floor window. He begged us with folded hands to come up and rescue him. The two firemen controlling the cage said it was too dangerous to go up to the sixth floor because of the shooting and in any case the senior hotel management watching from below had ordered that we should be brought down first. But Peter and I insisted. We could not live with the image of that man pleading at the window should something later have happened to him.

It had been relatively easy to rescue us from the third floor because we had a balcony but on the sixth floor there was no balcony and it meant breaking the glass window and persuading the terrified man to step out into the cage. I told him not to worry and above all not to look down – I didn’t know about him but I certainly suffer from vertigo. I held out my hand and one of the firemen held out his and together we more or less lifted the man through the window. He hugged me and kissed me in tears. I have no idea who he was but strangely he was clicking away with a camera throughout. Maybe one day I will see his pictures. But once we got out and we were surrounded by well-wishers I never saw him again.
I was never so glad to touch the ground and immediately be offered a bottle of water by the ever-attentive staff. Waiting to comfort us was Yannick Ponpon, Chief Operating Officer of the Taj Luxury Division and Brigit Zovniger, deputy General Manager. Ratan Tata the Chairman of Taj Group, who owns the Taj Mahal hotels was seen in the distance fighting back tears. I slipped away from the crowd for a moment and dropped the farewell note I had written to my family into the Arabian Sea, offering thanks to whoever had been watching over us.
I sent my brother Abbas, Esmail and Arif, who live in Bombay, back to their homes while Bob, Peter and I surveyed the terrible scene. It was not only the building burning, the heritage of India was burning. It was also my home in Mumbai burning because that was where I had stayed regularly for nearly three decades.

The temperature in the room was rising and there was nothing to do expect whisper quietly among ourselves. Fortunately we were together in the room.

I obviously speak of the Taj Hotel but I know the same courage and devotion was being shown at the Oberoi Hotel where 14 staff members died. The Chairman Biki Oberoi was also seen on TV in tears. The Oberoi hotel like Taj is also famous for its hospitality and comfort.
These were not trained soldiers or commandos. They were ordinary hotel staff. They were not prepared for danger and they would not even consider themselves to be heroes. But in my opinion every one of them deserves a medal for fearless devotion above and beyond the call of duty. Some of them, unarmed, led the Indian commandos through the many corridors of the hotel in search of the terrorists. I mourn the deaths of so many innocent lives – 188 Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews – in that terrible night which has scarred the city of Mumbai. But I doubt that anyone returning to India would not choose to stay at the Taj or Oberoi when restored to its former glory as it surely will, just to recognise the courage of its staff.
We escaped from the hotel with the clothes we stood up in but within hours the British High Commission staff working out of the British Council offices had arranged temporary passports and could not have acted more efficiently, supported by additional Foreign Office personnel sent over from London. While I was waiting from my passport, I got a call from Downing Street asking when I would be able to take a call from the Prime Minister. I said he could call me at any time and then Gordon Brown immediately came on the line and said how glad he was that I had come out unscathed. I was flabbergasted. It was incredible that the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man with so much to deal with politically and economically could find time to call and ask if I was alright. It really gave me great comfort. In the evening I also got a goodwill text message from the Foreign Secretary, David Milliband. The calls really boosted my morale.
There were so many other kindnesses at the time. I went along with Bob and Peter to a shop I knew to buy a change of clothes, but my friend Sukhraj Nahar, who accompanied us, refused to take a penny and he paid. I also needed to replace my medicines and a local pharmacy again refused to take money but I insisted as they were prescription drugs but I said I would accept a bottle of water to take my pills.

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