Eye witness: Dining out saved me

It does pay to skip a five-star dinner and try something novel. Danseuse Mallika Sarabhai has since been thanking her friends who suggested her to try out a new restaurant nearby, rather than dining at the Taj, where she had a room on the fourth floor of the heritage wing.

���Yes, I was at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel on Wednesday. In fact, my room was on the fourth floor, three or four rooms away from the window where the fire broke out,��� she said.

A quirk of fate saved her and her troupe who performed at a Unilever event on Wednesday evening. ���It was a very strange experience. We ��� my troupe and I ��� performed at a Unilever event at the Taj���s heritage wing. The event got over at about a quarter-to-eight, after which I was in my room meeting a few friends.

We had decided to dine at Taj, but they convinced me to dine at a new place that had opened just behind the hotel. At about quarter-past-10, we heard some gunshots. We took it for street shoot-out and I told my friends to drop me at the hotel,��� Ms Sarabhai told ET.

Ironically, at that time, she thought that her room in Taj would be the safest place to be in. ���I figured, I would be safest in my room at the Taj. So they dropped me there and I tried getting in. The entrance to the heritage wing was locked, so I walked to the main entrance. There were about seven or eight security personnel who refused entry, saying that there was a problem inside.���

She said that there was no sense of panic on the streets at that time. While waiting outside the hotel hoping that the security personnel would let her in, she got a call from the rest of her team, who had seen the TV footage. ���I did not realise what was going on at that time. It was the re