00:00: Charlie Rose: Stay with us. Joining me this evening is a couple who were able to escape virtually unharmed from the Taj hotel in Mumbai during last week's terrorist attacks. They are Michael Pollack, an investment banker with business in India, and his wife Anjali Pollack, who is an interior decorator. Their account of what happened to them is a remarkable story, a story of courage and story of survival, and a story of having to make instant decisions in which your life was at risk. I am very pleased to have them here to tell you their story and share what they saw and heard at this most awful event. So welcome. Great to have you here.
00:37: Anjali Pollack: Thank you.
00:39: Michael Pollack: Thank you for having us.
00:41: Charlie Rose: First of all, tell me why you want to tell this story.
00:45: Michael Pollack: Well, the most important thing for us is, first and foremost, we wouldn't be here, and you know, about 100 other of us wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the bravery of the Taj staff. Not to take anything away from the commandos. The commandos saved our lives equally, but it was the Taj staff, who literally died in disproportionate number to the rest of the hostages, that really allowed us to survive. And I think more than anything else, with every great tragedy, there is some great piece of humanity that comes forward. If you think about 9/11, the bravery of the firemen and of the policemen come to mind as standing out for really what helped Manhattan get over the problems there. And I think that the Taj staff really were -- epitomized some of the best aspects in humanity. And you know, just time after time, we can walk through the actual accounts, but there is at least four or five separate occasions in which they put their own lives at risk in order to help us and others. And we think many of them actually paid the ultimate price. And it's really out of a deep sense of --
01:50: Charlie Rose: Respect for their bravery.
01:52: Michael Pollack: Correct.
01:55: Charlie Rose: OK. Take me to the moment that you first knew there was trouble.
02:00: Michael Pollack: Well, we -- by -- we fortunately -- our table wasn't ready at a restaurant called the Golden Dragon. And we went next door, a place called the Harbor Bar. And then all of a sudden, there was an initial sound -- it sounded like there was a crashing of glasses, except it was followed by about 20 other sounds, so we knew that something was on. And we initially hid for cover. We tried to break some glass to go outside, but the panes wouldn't break. And the hostess was standing there and was about 20 feet from us. And she said there was a dead body that was in the lobby, and she could see it clearly. And when the -- when she thought that there was -- when it was safe, she ushered for us to go up a stairwell. And we just happened to be very fortunate that at the Harbor Bar, there was a stairwell that we could escape up to, to go into the kitchen area of another restaurant. And in the kitchen area of another -- in the kitchen area, the staff allowed us to go into a little office that was there. And the staff literally of the kitchen stood outside while we went into that office. We were in there. The mood was kind of light. We thought everything was OK. We watched TV for about an hour or so. And then all of a sudden, it became very silent, very quiet. And we wound up taking a very heavy wooden table, and we put it right up against the door. We turned off all the lights. And within minutes, there was a big, you know, pow, pow, pow at the door. And it was clear that somebody wanted to break in. And my wife overheard them trying to break in. And --
03:34: Anjali Pollack: No, it was actually our friend Shiv (ph). He was at the door looking through the keyhole, and we kept hearing the slamming, somebody trying to break open the door. And there was a member of the Taj staff outside. I think he was a chef, probably in the kitchen. And the gentleman -- the terrorist, sorry -- asked in Hindi "Masala Kraft kahahe (ph)?" Which means, "where is Masala Kraft," which is another restaurant. And the chef very, very calmly answered. You know, this is the direction where Masala Kraft is. And then the guy said, again in Hindi -- "undar konhe?" That means, "who is inside?" And he said, "don't worry, nobody's inside," in Hindi, to him. At which point, the terrorist ran ahead and we were spared.
04:21: Charlie Rose: And you mentioned the bravery. Clearly, there were instances in which you were told to go some way by people who worked in the hotel --
04:29: Anjali Pollack: Yes.
04:32: Charlie Rose: And then, as soon as you went that way, to some kind of safety, they were killed.
04:38: Anjali Pollack: Yes.
04:41: Charlie Rose: Give me a story of that.
04:43: Michael Pollack: Well, the clearest story is there was an attempted escape from our final hiding place. About 2:00 a.m. in the morning, I was in a place called the Chambers.
04:53: Charlie Rose: How did you get to the Chambers?
04:55: Michael Pollack: Well, after we were in the -- in the office, in the kitchen, the staff then, once the terrorist left, they said, you know, you should go to this other place, which was literally down the hall, but it was more secured. They felt that the doors were locked better. They felt that it was armed.
05:11: Anjali Pollack: And even at that point, when they escorted -- they stood in a line. There was, I would say at least 15 to 20 of them, who stood in a line, that should anything have happened -- they formed a human barrier between the terrorists' shots and us walking into the Chambers, where we were then held for a while. And then, to come to Michael's point, at about 2:00, you can --
05:32: Michael Pollack: At about 2:00, the staff attempted an evacuation. The fire -- there was a fire burning. And unfortunately, somebody who was in the Chambers had gotten on the local news media and said "by the way, there is 200 people in the Chambers," which then put us all at risk.
05:47: Charlie Rose: One of the stupidest things to happen --
05:49: Anjali Pollack: Absolutely.
05:51: Charlie Rose: -- during this.,
05:53: Michael Pollack: Correct. Which was a minister of parliament in India, believe it or not, who said that. And so they attempted an evacuation. And about two, three, four, five minutes into the evacuation, there was the sound of machine gunfire and grenades. And we believe that a lot of people in the stairwell were ultimately killed, and we believe that it was the Taj staff who stayed behind to make sure that doorway was locked to the rest of their -- to the rest of where we were in the Chambers. And at that place, there was just this huge stampede in order to try and find cover. And Anjali and I had decided prior to that, because we had had a couple of close calls already, that if that were to happen, given that the reports were that they were targeting U.S. and U.K. nationals, you know, we have two small children, so we decided the best thing to do was to split up. So I fled to a toilet stall and she fled to a large room. And, you know, after a lot of -- after a lot of gunfights, the terrorists managed to break into where we were, which is where the firefight then ensued for the next five hours.
06:53: Charlie Rose: Now -- what time is this by now? You have been doing this for how many hours?
06:58: Anjali Pollack: We entered the hotel at about 9:30. I think we entered the Chambers sort of about two hours after. And the evacuation was attempted at 2:00 thereafter. And there definitely, to Michael's point, the Taj, the staff definitely -- they stayed outside the doors. Because after that, I didn't see any of the staff inside again. Because during the time, before the evacuation, they were with us. They were, you know, telling us to relax, be calm. And there were two chefs who had spoken to us during the time we were in the kitchen, a gentleman named Hamand Oberoi (ph) and another one by the name of Banja (ph), who both were in the room with us and kept assuring us. And one of them came up to me, and he said "don't worry, you know, be calm. And if anything has to happen, don't worry." He said "I will die before you." And I held his hands, and I said "but I don't want you to die."
07:42: Charlie Rose: Did you have any means of knowing what was going on? Could you see television accounts? Could you see anything at all?
07:50: Anjali Pollack: We were actually -- the other thing the Taj staff did, again, to save us, was they killed all the lights when we came back from the evacuation. So we were all lying in darkness. The cell phones had all been turned to silent. But I was very lucky, because a friend of mine who was lying across my feet, Vishal (ph), was in Blackberry contact with Michael, so I knew he was OK, and also my friend was SMSing. My parents, our friends with Krishna Kumar (ph) and Ratnakrishna Kumar (ph), who are part of, you know, the Taj group of hotels and one of the lead people on the Tata Sons board, and were in touch with them. And they kept giving us information. And we kept giving them information. We didn't know that we were part of a terrorist attack by that time, and we didn't know that the other side was burning, heavily. It was also at this point that, at some point during the gunfire, we heard the terrorists, and we knew that the other rooms just next to us were being shot up, because we heard shots without return fire.
08:49: Charlie Rose: Did you hear them talking to each other?
08:51: Anjali Pollack: Not at all. And then --
08:55: Michael Pollack: It was just single shots. It was execution-style single shots. The scariest part was when there was no return fire. If there was pop, pop, pop, followed by pop, pop, pop --
09:03: Charlie Rose: You knew the commandos were (inaudible).
09:06: Michael Pollack: Yes, exactly. But when it was just pop, pop, pop and it was all coming from one sound, then I remember vividly, because I was in the toilet stall with one other guy, and we just said to each other, "they're killing people." And from our standpoint, that was the scariest part, because we had no idea. Because what basically had happened, if you think about -- if you think about how the Chambers was, it's kind of like an L. So you had two corridors, one east/west, one north/south. And the commandos were basically here, and they had killed everybody on the east/west corridor. And so, there was one large room where Anjali and our friends were. And the toilet stalls were here. And it felt like the terrorists were trying to cross this corridor in order to get to these people, because they knew there were a lot of high-value targets. And so it was basically a five- hour standoff, gun battle between them, in which, you know, there was a lot of grenades and automatic fire and single shots. And miraculously, everybody -- most people in this room -- I think about everybody survived.
09:59: Anjali Pollack: The other thing that was amazing -- there were two other things. One is at a certain point, there were gunshots on this side, and my friends were up against the terrace doors on this side, and they were throwing grenades and shots -- firing at us from outside on the terrace as well. But the amazing thing was that everybody in that room kept absolutely quiet. I didn't hear one scream. Not one.
10:22: Charlie Rose: No crying. No screaming, nothing.
10:25: Anjali Pollack: No crying, no screaming. Everybody was quiet. Most people I think were praying. And even the people who were shot in the room next door never screamed.
10:34: Charlie Rose: What is going through your mind? Is it so totally focused on survival, that is all you are thinking about? Or is it something else?
10:41: Anjali Pollack: We had completely opposite reactions. His -- he will tell you his, but I was -- I was really very, very calm. And I thought I was done for. I was ready to die. I had accepted that I was going to die. I just wanted my children to be safe with my family. But through it all, I -- and I really have to say this, I felt that I have always been such a lucky and blessed person, and I felt so much love of all my friends and family and loved ones sort of carrying me through it. I could feel all of them just holding me through this difficult time. And I think that the people next to me helped me a lot too, because we were all in it together. And I also want to make the point that there was a large group of Muslims right next to me who were preying. They were there just like me. They would have been killed just like me. Those terrorists are not Muslims. They are just terrorists. They would have killed all the Muslims besides me as well. But it really helped.
11:40: Charlie Rose: And how were you approaching this as you were --
11:42: Michael Pollack: I was -- I have never felt any adrenaline like that in my life. It was the most hyper-aware state I have ever been in, where I could hear every sound, I could hear every body movement, I could control my breath. When people -- there were people going and out of the stall, and I didn't know who they were. I didn't know whether they were commandos. I didn't know whether they were terrorists. I didn't know whether somebody was going to walk up to the stalls and fire shots in. So I was thinking -- I was constantly SMSing. You know, a friend had gotten me a contact at the FBI, and I was trying to understand what was going on. I was worried that they may have a suicide -- they may have suicide belts, and maybe they will bring in -- maybe they will bring down the roof. And it was just this hyper-aware state, where I didn't want to do anything dumb that would cause me to die. It was -- and you know, it was such an adrenaline-fueled period of time that I literally -- despite not having slept the entire night, I couldn't sleep for the next 15 hours. I was wide awake the next -- we were freed at 9:00 a.m. I didn't go to sleep until 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. the next day.
12:50: Charlie Rose: And when you look back at this, what do you want to tell your kids? What do you want to tell your parents?
12:59: Michael Pollack: That we have been given the greatest gift in the world. And --
13:06: Charlie Rose: We were looking at the hand of -- at the face of death, and somehow we miraculously, because of courage and circumstance --
13:12: Michael Pollack: Well, on two folds --
13:14: Charlie Rose: -- and chance --
13:16: Michael Pollack: On two folds. There is the obvious gift, which is that it is only when you have a near-death experience that your expectations are really lowered to the basic things, and your sense of ego diminishes over time. But the real gift, beyond the second chance at life, is to have seen the selfless nature of others in a period of absolute mayhem and barbarity, and to have seen how selfless human beings can be and really pull together as a community in these periods -- it's only something that, you know, Anjali and I can hope to try and emulate in the future.
13:54: Charlie Rose: You know, what is interesting about that. I don't know if it is true in this case, but when I talk to people who have been involved in circumstances like this and have been -- performed acts of heroism, they don't see it that way. They just say often, "I just did what I instinctively thought I should do. I did what was my duty. I did what anybody would have done." They all say things like that, rather than, you know, I knew I had to be a hero in order for these people to survive, so I chose to put my life at risk. It's much more a response to what is the right thing to do.
14:28: Michael Pollack: Yes. If anything, right now I would say what I feel, you know, the worst about or ashamed about is here I was acting so selfishly, to try and constantly think through how my wife and I could survive in this situation, and here were others acting so selflessly, thinking about how they can protect us.
14:45: Charlie Rose: But you don't feel guilty about that, do you?
14:46: Michael Pollack: A little bit.
14:48: Charlie Rose: Do you?
14:50: Michael Pollack: Yes.
14:51: Charlie Rose: Do you feel any of that?
14:53: Anjali Pollack: Yes. I feel -- I don't know -- for me, a lot of it is why am I here and not so many other people, you know? What made me get out? They made the same decisions as me. You know, I didn't make any different decision, and I have been given -- my family is so happy I'm home. My friends, my family. And their families are mourning.
15:13: Michael Pollack: And our children.
15:16: Anjali Pollack: And their children. And the only thing that helps is to be able to say thank you. And that's why we are here, to say thank you to those who helped us to be here. Sorry, really, really heartfelt sorry for those who can't be here. And to hope that through all of this, that we can come together, as a nation and as a world, to try to stop these kind of things from happening, so that people who have lost their lives across the globe in things like this, have not lost their lives in vain.
15:48: Charlie Rose: Eloquently said. Take a look at this. This is a picture taken on your Blackberry in the entrance of the Taj after several hours of separation while you were hiding from -- in different areas of the hotel. There is one. And what's this?
16:03: Anjali Pollack: I was so mad at him, because we had just walked out, and he gives me a big hug and he tries to take a picture on his Blackberry. And I said, "Michael, we're not out of here yet, stop it." You know? And I said that, and just as he takes the picture, they opened fire on us, again. And there were police vans and buses, and Michael shoved me onto the bus. My friend Vishar (ph) pulled me on, and he ran for cover. And we were separated again. So that's the picture you see.
16:31: Charlie Rose: Of all this time, how much of the time were you separate?
16:34: Anjali Pollack: Seven hours.
16:36: Charlie Rose: Seven hours.
16:37: Michael Pollack: Yes.
16:39: Charlie Rose: And the total time you were under attack was how long?
16:42: Michael Pollack: About 12 hours.
16:43: Anjali Pollack: Twelve hours.
16:45: Charlie Rose: Twelve hours under attack.
16:46: Michael Pollack: We spent seven hours literally curled up on the ground, you know, in pitch-black darkness with a firefight around us.
16:54: Charlie Rose: Not saying a word or --
16:57: Michael Pollack: Well, I mean, in the toilet stall I was saying -- a couple, you know, I was silently communicating with one other guy, who was there with me, but basically, no.
17:15: Charlie Rose: Michael Pollack and Anjali Pollack, thank you