As I lay there, I felt someone grab hold of me and help me to my feet. The good samaritan hurried me into a taxi and rushed to the hospital. The doctors there were reluctant to admit me but the stranger beside me begged them to take me in. As I removed my shirt and pressed against the wound, a copper-coated bullet fell out. The woman treating me smiled and uttered the three words I’d been waiting to hear — “You will survive”.

The 60-hour siege of Mumbai continued and not everyone was as lucky as I was. More people were brought in as the minutes ticked by. The man next to me had two bullets lodged in his stomach and was writhing in pain. A weeping mother clutched her dead child.

“Only Allah can save us now,” whispered someone on my right, a man who had been shot in the chest.

I turned to the man who had rushed me to hospital and asked his name. Turns out Kishore owns a small shop near the Leopold Café. He had already informed my friends, dialling a number that I had mumbled earlier.

My bureau chief in Mumbai, Charlotte, was among the first to find me at the hospital, weaving her way through a row of dead bodies before she spotted me.

Later, as local politicians made a beeline for the hospitals, I was glad to see no one of the staff paid them much heed. The old man at the X-ray machine shouted at one of the leaders, asking his supporters not to obstruct hospital staff. I was moved to a private hospital on Thursday morning where I was told a rib fracture had prevented the bullet from puncturing my lungs.

... contd.