Bloggers provide raw view of Mumbai attacks

Some bloggers posted firsthand accounts of the attacks on their own sites.

Sonia Faleiro "ate stir fry and drank campari" at a boutique hotel near the landmark Taj Mahal hotel just before the violence began.

"We stepped out of the hotel and bullets rang in the air, people screamed, a tidal wave raced down the street and the security guard said 'Inside! Madam, Inside NOW!'" she wrote. "We thought then it was a gang war, and it would end soon."

Arun Shanbhag, another south Mumbai blogger, wrote of sleeping through the blasts, even though he lives just one block from the Taj. He later posted dramatic photos of the 105-year-old hotel in flames.

"When I saw the dome of the Taj burning, my heart bleeds! It is all in knots! I am overwhelmed! Finally tears, in torrents!...Will the Taj be there when I wake up?" he wrote.

During the attacks Twitter became the village square for the online world, and the posts served as all things at once: public service announcements about where to donate blood; news ticker updates of death tolls; and even, sometimes, comic relief.

"Random 3 a.m. question while we wait for news to filter in: Why doesn't our PM move his facial muscles when he communicates?" a user named orange jammies posted hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to the nation.

For many Twitter users, traditional media like radio and TV were too slow — and forget about waiting for tomorrow's newspaper.

"Some channels just keep repeating the same stuff," orange jammies said. "I felt more like I was telling friends what was happening."

At times, Ranganathan found himself facing ethical questions familiar to larger news organizations. He snapped a series of photos of corpses, but felt uneasy about posting the images.

Struggling with the decision, he did what he had done all week: He turned to his online peers. He posted a poll on his blog about whether to publish the photos — the response was 50-50. He decided not to.

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