The finely-built stairways that once greeted anyone who entered the hotel now bear the signs of the fierce encounter with "three bodies of the guests" lying there.

The super luxury brand shops, which operated from inside the hotel, once a favourite hunting ground for Mumbai's socialites, too stands a mute spectator to the mindless bloodshed.

No news came about the Taj Chambers, the room which had an envious collection of books exclusively for the hotel guests who could sit on the plush leather chairs and read a book while sipping fine scotch or smoking a cigar.

The first floor and the terrace of the heritage hotel, Bombay's first public building to be lit by electricity, seems to have borne the maximum brunt of the terror attack that has left the entire world in complete shock.

Smoke continues to billow out from the first floor of the hotel even after the fire brigade had doused the flames.

Even the hundreds of pigeons, which can be seen sitting along the windows of the hotel or just near the entrance and on the roof top on any given day, now prefer to sit calmly on the road besides the hotel, probably because even they realised that its not the same anymore.

Except for the smoke, from a distance the hotel looks exactly like the way it was before terrorists stormed it, giving no clue of the horror that unfolded inside.

The iconic building, an architectural marvel and amalgamation of Moorish, Oriental and Florentine styles, constructed in 1903 at a cost of about Rs 25 lakh was commissioned by Steel Man of India, Jamshedji Tata, after, according to folklore, he was denied entry into one of the grandest hotels of its time - Watson's Hotel meant for 'Whites only'.

... contd.