26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 6-The Company

"You are known by the company you keep". Quite literally I think I’m in good company.

Company means my workplace my coworkers and my bosses across the world. Till the day I was injured I knew this company is very dedicated to its professionalism and serves its employees the best it can, but as it happened with me I could know the truth.

We had instances of people being given special armored vehicles for news coverage; they have been airlifted from conflict zones all at the company’s expenses. I used to think this must have been a mechanical affair. But I was wrong, the whole company was worried, the leadership and coworkers across continents and departments were worried.

I received hundreds of well being messages, e-mails and personal visits. Besides Charlotte, Rosemary , Phil, and Ramya, along with other editors based in Mumbai personally met me at the time of crisis.

The global editor David and chief executive Tom mentioned their concerns taking time out of the Thanks Giving holiday in 2008.

The company also tried providing the best medical services it could have been also a month’s off to recuperate. Though I was out of the crisis with simple medical surgery the gesture was heartwarming.

A year after the gesture continued I received well being messages from my editors.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 3 – Charlotte Cooper

I never talk about my office people in my personal blog but this is a one-off event where humanity was involved, and the story was about human spirit and needed to be told.

Charlotte, the then Mumbai bureau chief of the news agency I work for was somewhere in the roads of south Mumbai, when the attacks were taking place. Daring as she was always, drove on the abandoned and terror struck roads of Mumbai to reach me, a fellow colleague and a fellow human being.

While the Police was cautious after anti-Terrorist chief Hemant Karkare and other senior police officials fell to terrorist’s bullets, Charlotte, her husband Peter and driver Francis drove across and reached St George Hospital.

She waded through dead bodies to finally discover me among the survivors. Her presence lovely, renewed my confidence and belief in the good news.

While I grew more confident, she got back to her job of reporting the horror to the world. Peter and Francis helped injured ones with water, connected them with loved ones using their phones.