The last time we had a major terror incident in Mumbai was when the bombs rocked the train in Mumbai in 2006. Mumbai is no stranger to violence when in 1993, we were hit by a series of blasts all across the city.

However, this time things are different. I reached home at around 10.30 last night after having dinner at Dynasty with Lil white mouse. She informed me off a shooting incident at Leopold in Colaba. I switched on the news to read about the incident and within the next hour realized that it wasn’t just a stray firing but what would turn out to be a full fledged terror attack.

It started off with Cafe Leopold at about 9.30pm and then the Taj Mahal hotel, Hotel Trident, CST Station, Vile Parle, Mazegoan, Cama Hospital and Jewish Headquarters. Read the Terror Roundup on IBNLive.

Incidently, I passed Vile Parle about an hour, if not less, before the blast hit. The taxi blew up below the flyover I had passed over.

The terrorists have taken people hostage at Taj Mahal Hotel, Hotel Trident as well as at Nariman House. Reports currently state that the hostage situation at Taj is resolved, though there are still several persons trapped in the building and it is believed that six terrorists are at large.

The last time we saw such an hostage situation was on Indian Airlines Flight 814 on Christmas Eve 1999.

Reported casualties are 101 killed and several hundred injured, including Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and several police officials. However, I’m sure this is not the final count as police are continuing to find bodies in the hotels.

You can check out some photos of the attack on IBNLive.com or view their Live Streaming.

I had solved a similar one like this many years ago and I received this via a forward. How many of you can solve this mystery ?

So here goes…

Three friends went to a hotel and drew up a bill of $75/-
Each contributed $25/- towards this and the waiter took the bill to the cashier.

For some reason unknown, our dear friend the cashier decided to give them a discount and asked the waiter to return $5/-.

Now the waiter was confused. He thought, “How to distribute $5 among 3 persons? ”

So he kept $2 in his pocket & gave one dollar to each one of the 3 persons.

That brings us to the mystery.

Initially each one had contributed $25. And each received one dollar making their contribution $24.

Thus, all contributed Rs 24 — that is 24×3=72 and 2 dollars in the waiters pocket.

The total becomes 74. But they had paid $75.

Where is the missing dollar?

Note: The clipart image above is courtesy Hassle Free Clip Art

My choir was asked to sing at Hotel Orchid, near the Santacruz airport.

Had earlier said I wouldn’t be able to make it. However, it was later rescheduled for 7pm. Spent a good day at work today and ensured that I finished all my targets before I asked for permission.

Left at 5.30pm from work and picked up Anjali our my way there. Had given my coat and tie to her mom yesterday itself so that I didn’t have to carry it to work.

The ambience of the hotel was really nice. However, we didn’t get to see much of it as we had to sing in the lobby. Was kinda embarrassing at first, but after a few carols got kinda used to it.

Sang for around 45-50 minutes after which we were taken for snacks. Decent stuff.

Wasn’t able to carry my digicam as I came directly from work. However Clayton had carried his and so got a decent picture of our choir above.

After the event, Anjali came home with me on the bike. Dropped off my coat at my house (well couldn’t carry it all by myself on the bike ) before dropping her home.

And instead of sleeping I stayed awake to write this post!

Have another long day tomorrow, both at work and afterwards. But, I am looking forward to it

Tuesday, 27 April 2004
Had my ESD vivas this day and must confess that preperation for it hadn’t really been top class.

Around 2.30 am our Internal began the vivas even though the External wasn’t present. He started asking stuff from the journal, which is something we aren’t very well versed with. My turn came with Samiksha and Abhimanyu and luckily for me, I was able to answer him quite a bit.

I had to go to the Grand Hyatt in Santacruz East immediately after this, so I left my things with Abhimanyu and took off for the place. Melody met me at the entrance and took me to where I was supposed to be stationed on Webnesday (the Grand Salon). Was there till nearly 9pm I guess and thoroughly enjoyed roaming around in the area of the Conference!
Of all the things what really amazed me was the Internet connection! Shocking 150 kBps (I get 4.5:roll:). Pages loaded before I could blink my eye and software downloaded in record breaking times!:grin:

Melody then “took me out” for dinner to McDonalds, Bandra, as we weren’t able to eat at the hotel. Thanks to the Happy Meal we bought, because she wanted the toy man (Found out his name was Nick and he’s a Galidor), we got a photo taken of us. See how she loves Ronald McDonald more than me

Wednesday, 28 April 2004
Today was the big day of the Nokia Conference. I reached Melody’s place at around 7.30 am and we left around 8 am.

Went straight off to the Grand Salon where I was posted for the day.
My job: Ensure that media persons out there could access the net and print out whatever matter they needed. This involved setting up a mini-Lan and getting the beautiful HP LaserJet on the network. This was done yesterday itself thanks to the help of Santosh (who works for them) and who was great company for the day.

I expected a lot of press people, but sadly, oddly or luckily, not one turned up the whole day. So, basically I had a really boring but tiring day (though I did complete work with the awards page of Glorify God).

Melody’s Mom took me for lunch to the cafeteria and Melody joined us there. Yummy!

The conference wrapped up around 6 and we packed up and left

The day was a fantastic experience for me. Tiring and enjoyable and I’ve already thanked the ones responsible for it