Kin of two 7/11 victims live on hope

Kin of two 7/11 victims live on hope

11 Months After The Blasts, Lives Of Two Families Have Been Intertwined Forever By Fate

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: As the Arabian Sea ebbs and flows below the window of the 8th-floor Hinduja Hospital bed, 48-year-old Madhuri Sawant wipes her tears and tries to lift her son’s head which drops the minute it is unsupported.
   “Parag, enough is enough. Let’s go home. If you are not coming, I am going,’’ Madhuri says, ruffling Parag’s hair. Even as she play-acts, her 28-year-old son’s eyes are focussed on a corner of the room. He doesn’t seem to comprehend a word, but all the same clutches his mother’s fingers to prevent her from leaving.
   A few km away on the 12th floor of a bed in Jaslok Hospital, 44-yearold Dinesh Singh prepares to go home and gently kisses the forehead of his 22-year-old son, Amit Singh. “Chhotu, you are brave. You know you will recover. Don’t cry, beta. Mummy is here and your brother will arrive soon. I have to go home. Be brave, son,’’ he says, stifling his sobs. Amit’s eyes, like those of Parag, flicker for a split second as if in comprehension, but the very next moment turn listless again. Both Parag and Amit, victims of the July 2006 serial train bomb blasts, suffered head injuries, and after several surgeries, cannot comprehend and process information.
   Eleven months after the serial train bomb blasts killed 209 people, the lives of these two families have been intertwined forever by fate. Of the 700 who were injured, Parag and Amit are the only ones still in hospital and facing a bleak and uncertain future.
   Parag, who became a father last year, has no clue about his fatherhood and did not bat an eyelid when his infant daughter, Prachiti, was placed before him eight months ago. That his wife, Priti, passed her 12th-standard exam recently does not matter to him either. In an attempt to jolt him out of the state, the nurses and support staff at Hinduja have stopped cajoling and begun acting stern with Parag: earlier this week, a nurse shrilly told him at 6 in morning that it was time for him to go home. Parag was just about startled, says his mother, though seconds later he was his usual listless self.
   Amit, whose B Com results were out after the blasts, secured a first class, though he remains oblivious to the fact. But the family has not given up hope. His mother, Meena, massages her son’s leg gently with oil and pleads with him to keep his legs, which have curled up after months of disuse, straight. Tears run down her cheeks as she virtually begs her son for one small response. “He doesn’t listen to me,’’ she says, knowing fully well why Amit does not respond. Amit understands things, though. “The input is there but there is no output (in terms of movement or action),’’ says Uncle Umesh Singh.
   For the last 11 months, the Singh and Sawant families have made the hospital their home. Both the mothers, who were housewives who rarely left their home before their sons’ accident, have now become battleweary veterans, commuting from Virar and Bhayandar on overcrowded local trains. As mothers are wont to do, they survive on the hope that one day their sons will awake from their near-comatose conditions, recover and return home.
   Though the railway ministry is paying the hospital bills, more often than not the two families end up spending anywhere between Rs 500-1000 a day on incidental expenses like travelling and eating. The Sawant kitchen at Bhayandar and the Singh kitchen at Virar are all but defunct, with both mothers lacking the energy to cook after spending the better part of their time at the hospital tending to their sons.
   The other family members too pitch in. Amit’s elder brother, Dheeraj Singh, stays at night by his brother’s side and goes directly to his Churchgate office in the morning. It’s been ages since he saw his home. In the case of Parag, his father and brother as well as his aunt take turns to relieve the mother who spends her day by Parag’s bedside reading religious texts and playing the Gayatri Mantra tape throughout the day. Both families have heard about each other though they have been unable to meet. Doctors at both hospitals privately admit that only a miracle can change the situation. The Singh and Sawant families are living in the hope of that miracle.

TWIN TRAGEDY: While Parag Sawant (left) has ben admitted to the Hinduja Hospital, Amit Singh is undergoing treatment in Jaslok Hospital. (Below) The sketches of how they looked like before the serial blasts