MUMBAI: Dr Tilu Mangeshikar has dealt with patients severely in need of trauma care not only in India, but also in other countries such as Germany. While she is no stranger to blood and gore, on the night of November 26, 2008, she did something she never done before, nurse the wounds of a man shot in the stomach using little else besides cutlery and table cloth.
She was one of several people holed up in the Lavender Room at the Taj on the night of November 26, as two gunmen lay siege to Mumbai's oldest five-star hotel. During an aborted evacuation attempt that night, the group of hostages nearly walked into the terrorists who began shooting straight at them, severely injuring Rajan, a Taj staffer.
Mangeshikar spent eight hours on the floor beside Rajan. She recalls how frustrated she was with the authorities that night. "I had one hand inside Rajan's stomach, ensuring that his guts didn't spill out, and with the other hand I held a mobile phone. I spoke to a very senior official in the Mumbai police force and asked him to rescue us from the Lavender Room as there was a man who was severely. I kept telling them that he might not make it through the night unless medical supplies reached us. The police officer asked me to pop my head out of the Lavender Room so that the cops could identify the location. I found it extremely frustrating that the police couldn't simply get hold of a map of the Taj and figure out where the room was," says Mangeshikar.
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