That's how the Jewish businessman from Vancouver, who was caught up in the 26/11 terrorist attacks, has described Mumbai. Jonathan Ehrlich has created an international sensation with his first person account of what happened and how he coped and escaped. In a discussion with Rupert Fisher of asianaffairs, Ehrlich said he did not want to participate in a full blown 'question and answer' interview, but was quite happy to be paraphrased and for 'snippets' to be used from his occasionally fruity telling of what transpired.

'Thank God for the kind people of Mumbai,' he has told friends from all over the world. The wonderfully kind hotel staff. That cook. My cab driver who constantly said “relaxation”, “relaxation,” “I help”... 'And for other people in traffic who…literally risked life and limb to stop traffic to let us get by.'

Ehrlich, who works for an Internet company and has business connections in Mumbai, was visiting the city in late last November when the Pakistan-based terrorists launched their deadly attacks on the Taj Hotel, Trident-Oberoi Hotel, as well as the Chabad Jewish centre.

A family man, who is married with children, Ehrlich does his best to be low key and modest in retrospect about what he saw and did. At the heart of his experience is the 'blog' he wrote on the aircraft returning home that has been circulating around the world, prompting readers to describe it as a 'Pulitzer' winning insight of the Mumbai tragedy.

In practice Ehrlich has done a number of interviews with news outlets, including some on the Internet, that combine with his blog to create a panoramic, heart thudding view of Mumbai's terror experience last November.

One of the media outlets where Ehrlich's story first emerged is called Voz Iz Neias (Yiddish for what's news), that describes itself as highly popular, rapidly-growing blog that meets the demanding media needs of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, across the United States, and around the world.

In this account Ehrlich describes how friends invited him to join them for a drink in the Trident-Oberoi Hotel bar, but he refused because he was leaving the next day and had to catch an early flight. While he was in bed, terrorists entered the hotel and started searching the guest register for westerners. Fortunately for Ehrlich, he did not respond to the knock on his door late that night, which he believes was from the terrorists as they swarmed across the corridors looking for victims.

'Two minutes later, there was a massive explosion. The whole hotel shook, and I knew something was wrong,' Ehrlich explained.
'I ran out into the hallway … I heard the word bomb. Then adrenalin just kicked in overdrive. I went in, threw my stuff together and picked up my bags, ran down the stairs (and) went into the lobby area.'
Explaining that there were no hotel staff or police in the lobby, only puzzled guests milling around, Ehrlich went on, 'It's not a good scene. There was glass everywhere, blood and stuff. I took a couple of steps in and realised it was not the way to go, so I went back in (the lobby) and people were still standing around. I just said, “We got to get out of here!” so I started running towards the exit.'
It was as he ran out of the hotel that he heard police yelling 'Run!'

'I started screaming “airport, airport” and one of the guys from the hotel grabbed me and my bags and threw me in a cab and took me to the airport.'
Ehrlich remains eternally grateful to the hotel chef who found him a mini cab for the mad dash to the airport, and to the cab driver, prompting him to comment how Mumbai is 'a tragically beautiful place; incredibly sad. But I am convinced that its inhabitants are definitely children of some troubled but immensely soulful god.'

He also records how lucky he is to be born into a strong and protective family, lucky to be married to 'the kindest heart' on the face of the earth and lucky to be blessed with four healthy and beautiful children.

Contrasted with the loving support of his family and friends, including some Mumbaikers, Ehrlich comments on what he describes as the jihadi 'monsters', how they tortured the Israeli, Jewish inmates of Mumbai's Chabad House.

A local doctor is cited as saying, “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood.”

Another doctor is quoted as saying, “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed.”

What Ehrlich does not reveal in his first blog and his media interviews is a little bit of family history from the Second World War that is as every bit as compelling as his own experience — and just as relevant.

This bit of family, about which he has told his friends, is centred on his father's uncle, a man called Herschel Cinowitz, who came from the town of Yedwabne in Poland. When the Nazis conquered Yedwabne, they forced the local Jews to dig their own graves into which they were interred after being burned alive.

Cinowitz was one of the lucky ones who managed to evade the Nazis before making his way to safety and salvation in Bombay, later named Mumbai. As Ehrlich dispassionately records in a letter to one of his friends, 'At the time Mumbai was his (Cinowitz's) salvation. I'm only seeing it now.'

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