eleven seven

PARAG SAWANT- A TERSE REMINDER OF 11/7

We in Mumbai, recall the horror that visited us one year back, in the form of seven chain blasts in our life line, the Western Railway, at peak evening hours. An act which left nearly 200 of our known and unknown faces dead and a few thousand injured. I remember the jam packed roads where every one was hailing down every vehicle in sight, to haul the victims to the nearby hospitals. That was one more evening the Mumbaikars showed the world what we are capable of, in the face of a calamity. There was no segregation based on class, creed or religion in helping each other. Every one was there everyone else. I also recall the long queues in front of hospitals, where the relatives were searching for their kith and kin amidst the victims. But there was another set of queue probably longer than the first one, of citizens lined up to donate blood! This is Mumbai for you. On 12/7, we in Mumbai spat on the face of the perpetrators by bringing the city back to normal life! That, again, is Mumbai for you.

We also put up with the visits of VIPs and VVIPs who were more eager to have their visits photographed than offer genuine help. The VVIP visitors from Delhi were more concerned to tell us not to blame any single or particular group of people for the crime.

All this is history for us today, as we pay our homage to the departed hundreds. It is to the credit of the Railways that many of the dependents were given monetary assistance or jobs to face the life after. But many still are in the depths of suffering.

Leading the pack amongst the suffering is Parag Sawant, 27, who is “neither alive nor dead” and has been in bed No 28 of Hinduja Hospital for nearly one year. Despite the 5 Neuro surgeries he has undergone, his Brain is still damaged. He still breaths, and looks at you, but never recognizes anything, at least that what we and the doctors think. The sight of his young wife, Priti trying to make him hold the then-just born baby girl whom she gave birth to a couple of months after the blasts, still rends my heart. I am sure I saw a glassy smile on Parag’s face, but evidently there was no recognition. Even today, the sweet little girl (named Prachiti – meaning “Experience”) has not experienced her father’ love, thanks to the perpetrators of the crime. Priti has since taken up a Railway job to bring up the child. But that has not given back her smile on her face. Parag’s mother is always around him in the hospital, but has forgotten to smile. Parag still wears that glassy smile at times but has forgotten to smile from within. I am sure if any one of you had seen these survivors (hope Parag can be called one), you would have lost your sleep.