The Force is with Jayesh!
An Account from the Edmonton Sun of Jayesh’s lucky escape at the Oberoi.
Former Edmontonian Michael O’Byrne (Jayesh), one of the late Judge Michael O’Byrne and his wife Eileen’s 11 children (Eileen now lives in Victoria), is counting multiple blessings.
In 1984 Michael left Edmonton to follow Osho. Today, with his brother D’Arcy, he runs the Osho Resort in Pune and Osho International.
Jayesh had just left the restaurant of Mumbai’s Oberoi Hotel in India on Wednesday to return to his room when terrorists attacked the restaurant.
Almost everybody in the dining room was killed.
According to a family member’s report, Jayesh then heard the hotel fire alarm.
People started walking down from the 17th floor. The elevator was locked.
Michael, fresh off knee surgery, couldn’t take the stairs. He returned to his room.
The fire alarm was thought to be set off by the terrorists. They shot hotel guests as they appeared in the stairwell.
The terrorists ended up on Michael’s floor, stayed there for hours. Again, luck intervened. They did not burst into his room.
The hotel contacted Jayesh before the phone went dead, advising him to stay in his room, stay in the safest place, the bathtub.
And so he waited, some 50 to 60 hours through smoke and drifting gunpowder residue until Indian special forces rescued him and other surviving guests.
“We are all so blessed and happy that Jayesh made it outside,” says his last remaining brother in Edmonton, lawyer and businessman Casey O’Byrne.