It is said that ‘Physical knowledge is acquired through the five senses’ but initially, all my senses seemed to be clogged by fear. Slowly, I gathered some courage by praying God to help me and others come out of this bizarre situation. I could hear the gunfire and within few seconds in front of my eyes the smoke of gunpowder engulfed us. After that it was a challenging task for us to even breathe. This obnoxious feeling of a mixture of gunpowder and smoke left a lasting taste in my mouth. The whole scene looked like a battlefield in that small pocket-sized room.
As the sun rose, I felt so famished and wanted to clutch anything available to eat but after seeing those little children crying for their feed my hunger died down. They just gave us tap water which was warm and I felt like belching out! I was desperate to go to the toilet but it was a long wait. At last, when my number came the toilet was stinky and it was horrible to be inside. It was pain staking long day where every moment was difficult to pass. My heart felt like crying when I saw the innocent people passing through such an ordeal. As the night approached, many thoughts made inroads in my mind. Time and again they used to threaten us that they will slit our throats one by one.
This used to be quite devastating for us but my parents used to provide that ample courage which helped me to tide over the crisis. This diverted my mind which eventually went into flash back. I started to shuffle the pages of my past memories as if I was going through my autobiography. I recalled some of my good and bad times of life like a roller coaster with many ups and downs. I cherished my memories with friends and relatives. All these thoughts made me quite sentimental about my existence. I thought that if I survive this moment, I would devote my life towards humanitarian causes and try to bring people closer to each other so that this world becomes a safe heaven!
My biological clock started ticking and I felt wearier. This reflected in my body postures and I realised that it was night time. Suddenly, I noticed that one of them showed some signs of mercy towards children by giving them some milk and chocolates. That very moment it clicked in my mind that although they were terrorists but they still had some iota of human feelings. This gave me an idea that the door to escape is nearby as I had captured that moment and wanted to capitalise it for our freedom. I started to think of escaping from this hell as it would have been really hard to stay inside that detention for long. The choices were limited and moreover it was treacherous but still it was worth trying as it concerned many lives! By now my eyes started to droop and I began to drift off to asleep but I could hardly sleep as my mind was still working to steal that opportunity!
They also appeared exhausted and I thought that it was the perfect time to strike a chord. As I knew some Spanish, I emboldened myself to start a dialogue with them. Initially, they were not responsive and had put a stiff image of themselves but then eventually they melted down just like warm butter. One of them was more approachable as he opened his heart and started talking with me and mentioned about how much he missed his family. He explained that he has a child of my age who wants to study but there is no school in their area. There has been rising unemployment and poverty in the region which also lacked health care and transportation facilities. This even led to death of one of his sons. They are deprived of basic necessities of life. They are tired of false promises made by politicians time to time .That is why they are forced to take this drastic action of kidnapping as they were treated badly by their government. I felt their cause was justifiable but the approach was wrong.
I felt that my mission was near completion as I was able to distract them by this conversation so that they could not pay attention to any development happening outside the room. By that time, I heard some gunshots. It seemed that the government troops were planning some action to make us free but this made us even more susceptible for any backlash. Suddenly, the door burst open and the commandos entered the room. The exchange of fire led to chaotic scenes and the people started screaming and running towards the door. The commandos swarmed the entire place and in a swift action they over powered the terrorists. It took them nearly four to five hours to clear the entire region and by early dawn we tasted the air of freedom.
When we came out we were overwhelmed by the media just like some celebrity. They started to bombard volley of questions on us like who were they? How we felt inside? How many terrorists were their inside the hotel? Did they torture you? What went through your minds, when you were held captive? To which we responded in our own way. We were offered some drinks and snacks as most of us were quite dehydrated. This made me feel refreshing to a certain extent. The entire incident left a deep impact on my mind whether the solution to our problems lies in this dastardly act or there are better ways of understanding the problem. There should be overall development rather than just promoting one region. I wish that nobody should ever undergo such a gruesome incident in his life and the world to be free from the monster of terrorism.
