Mumbai terrorism victim recalls horrific ordeal

MONTREAL — Mumbai terrorism survivor Michael Rudder believes education is the best way to eradicate the kind of fanaticism that led gunmen from Pakistan to pump four bullets into him, nearly claiming his life.

Michael Rudder

Rudder, 58, a Montreal-based actor, was among the more than 300 people injured in the at least 10 co-ordinated shooting and bombing attacks that took place in India’s financial capital between Nov. 26 and 29. Two of his friends, an American man and the man’s 13-year-old daughter, were among the 173 killed.Rudder was sitting with these two friends and a few others, who had come to India to further their study of transcendental meditation, in the restaurant of the luxury Oberoi Trident Hotel when they were suddenly sprayed with gunfire. About 30 people died in that attack.

Rudder vividly recreated that horrifying scene in a talk at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, sponsored by the Men’s Association. It was his first extensive public statement about what happened and how he is coping since he returned to Canada in December.

He did not express any bitterness towards his attackers nor did he say he forgave them. The worst he said of them is that they were “punks” and “pathetic”, who were reared in poverty and ignorance. His strongest feelings are for those who trained them and masterminded the attacks, and he would like to talk to them directly.

“[The attackers] are guided like puppets, they are trained to hate. They spend two years lying in a field to become instruments of hatred,” Rudder said. He believes that they were taken advantage of by those who can give them food in exchange for indoctrination.

The free world, he believes, must do all it can to promote education in disadvantaged parts of the world. Rudder believes the majority of people everywhere want a happy life for themselves and their families. “But they must have the knowledge of peace to have a thirst for it…If all they know is hate, that is how people respond to others.

“I’m not an expert in Islamic terrorism, but I think we have to do everything we can to break down that mindset.”

Asked if the would be a witness for the prosecution in any trial connected to the Mumbai attacks, Rudder said “absolutely.”

Rudder, a veteran film, stage and TV actor, credits his meditative practice to helping him to stay calm throughout the assault and to come to terms with what happened since then, as he continues to physically and psychologically heal.

Rudder was shot in the right arm, left thigh, the rectum and in the head, the bullet penetrating his skull but not touching his brain. He lost a huge amount of blood during the delay in getting medical treatment, and knows he was on the verge of death. Since returning to Montreal, he has undergone another series of surgeries.

Today, he says he is health is quite good, but he has not regained the strength and stamina he enjoyed beforehand.

Psychologically, he describes himself as still shaky, but continues to work at finding a balance between mind, body and soul, through exercise and reflection. “My response has been, ‘can I become more loving to everyone I interact with?’”

He has had nightmares of being chased by terrorists, from which he wakes up in a cold sweat, or of having been able to save his friend and his daughter.

His practice of TM has given him serenity, and has taught him respect for others, he said.

Terrorism in a country he reveres for its spirituality and the gentleness of its people has been a terrible irony for him, as is the fact that his friends, who were so devoted to peace and harmony, were among its victims.

“The way I perceived the event was directly influenced by the state of consciousness, the elevated awareness, that I was in at the time,” he said. “We were all in an exalted state.”

His group of six were seated in the back of the restaurant on that day. If they had sat in the front as they usually did, Rudder thinks they probably all would have been slain.

All of a sudden, two men with automatic weapons blazing entered the room, and Rudder and the others dove under the table. It was soon a hellish scene of chaos and carnage, but somehow he was able to observe it all with an extraordinary detachment.

He looked upon his own bloodied body with an equanimity that surprises him now. In fact, his reaction was a kind of twisted humour. “I said to myself this is like Die Hard with a Vengeance.”

When he heard the blood gurgling in his throat as his friend lay dying, “I thought this is so unfair” but accepted it.

Another friend, shot in the back, had fallen on top of him and he could not move.

He lost consciousness for awhile, and when he awoke the survivors had been taken away. He apparently had been taken for dead.

What sounded like a grenade went off 30 feet away, and then another. He knew it wasn’t over and as he recalled, “I waited to be executed.”

Rudder said the reading he had done on the Holocaust (one of his roles was in the TV movie Varian’s War) and how concentration camp inmates pretended to be dead in order to avoid being shot came to mind as he lay there face down in a pool of blood. He remained very still.

Then he heard liquid being poured in the lobby. It was gasoline and the terrorists were creating a smokescreen between them and the army.

Rudder knew if he coughed it would be over for him, so he crawled on the floor into the kitchen, and eventually to the exit doors only to be confronted by a police officer pointing a gun at him. When it was determined he was a victim, Rudder was bundled into a tiny taxi along with another man with a stomach wound and rushed to the hospital by a very frightened driver who had to make his way through the alarmed throngs on the street.

He collapsed finally and spent weeks in intensive care in Mumbai. He has nothing but praise for his doctors and nurses for their kindness. The young staff called him “dear uncle,” a term of affection and respect for an elder. “I cried when I left,” Rudder said. He contrasted this solicitude with the sometimes brusque attention he has received since in Quebec hospitals.

Rudder said the love of friends and family and his ability to go inside himself  through meditation have been a great comfort in the last few months.

But the enlightenment he experienced during his ordeal is already starting to dissipate, he admits. “Before coming here I cut myself shaving and I cursed like a baby because there was a bit of blood.”