National

Running Scarred

The horror is past, but present still, in these stories of people touched by 26/11

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Running Scarred
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Where
In the folds of Life
Did I lose you?,
Where
In the folds of Death
Will I find you?

On free-floating paper, in diaries, at the rear ends of notebooks, expressions of this teenager’s distress at losing his parents appear everywhere. “They went out to dinner,” sobs the 15-year-old who doesn’t want to be identified, “and never came back.” He sought comfort in words. “I wrote and wrote, wishing there was some way to get through to them in cyberspace or otherspace or wherever.” All the creature comforts in an upscale neighbourhood of Mumbai can’t make up for the constant presence of that absence. “I think I will always write.”

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Maruti Phad, a government driver who was shot at on the Cama Hospital lane. He lost two fingers and injured his shoulder.

However distressed I may be, I don’t talk about it. If I do, my sons will overhear; it’ll be imprinted on their minds forever.
***

Words, for some, are the only solace, a way to begin coming to terms with losing loved ones. For others, silence is the only refuge, both within and outside. It’s almost a compelling need to be quiet after the roar of gunfire last November, the piercing shrieks and wails, the unmistakable moans of the dying, the sudden terrible noise in their lives. Maruti Phad, a 33-year-old survivor, epitomises this. A driver with the Maharashtra government, he was bravely trying to manoeuvre his boss’s car through the now infamous Cama Hospital Lane minutes before the police jeep carrying officers Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar was fired upon by gunmen. The red beacon of the car Phad was driving made it the gunmen’s target too; a bullet grazed his shoulder and snipped two fingers off his right hand that was gripping the steering wheel.

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Since he came back home from hospital last December, after a spate of surgeries, Phad has not spoken about it, except for occasional references with friends. “I cannot forget that night,” says the now government clerk, “but however distressed I get, I don’t let it show; I can’t afford to.” Priming himself for yet another surgery to realign a finger bone, Phad goes on to say, “It’s my tragedy. If I talk about it, my boys—aged seven and five—will overhear, pick up something and it will be imprinted in their minds forever.”

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Kalpana shah, wife of businessman Pankaj Shah, who was killed at Oberoi’s Kandahar restaurant.

We had everything, we romanced life and each other, had great kids. I valued it all. Now, there is a deep void within.
***

Kalpana Shah, at the other end of the social spectrum, can still feel the peck on her cheek her husband Pankaj, chairman of a multi-crore real estate group, gave her before he left for dinner with friends at the Oberoi. “It was an unusual goodbye, for he gave me a peck and left,” says Shah, well-known curator and owner of the Tao Art Gallery. She wept almost everyday, and still cannot hold back the tears. “We had everything, we romanced life and each other, had great kids. I valued it all. Then, I was the same inside and outside. Now, there is a deep void within.”

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Carrying forward the dreams or work of their loved ones is a powerful life crutch. Ragini Sharma finds purpose in life from the ‘Shaheed Sushil Kumar Sharma Foundation’ she set up in her husband’s memory because “he always dreamt of giving something back to society”. Ticket inspector Sharma went beyond the call of duty that night at CST, to alert hordes of commuters of the gunfire, then to save a four-year-old, but fell to bullets himself. His widow was given a job and compensation. She decided the job was enough to raise her two boys—Siddhant, studying first year engineering, and Aditya in Class 8—and set up the foundation with the compensation money. “Through this, I want to help needy people not only monetarily but in other ways too. We identified and honoured local heroes like my husband, sponsored a drawing competition and debate around the theme of terrorism in Kalyan (Mumbai suburb) and Gwalior,” she says, eyes brimming over.

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Bhaskar Kadam, Hemant Bawdhankar, Sanjay Govilkar... the team that caught Ajmal Kasab.
 ***

The faces of my friends and colleagues come back to me. A year’s passed us by, I don’t know how, says Govilkar

Some allow memories a free flow, others prefer to shut them out. Like police inspector Sanjay Govilkar. He was part of the team that intercepted the Skoda at Chowpatty where Abu Ismail was shot dead and Ajmal Amir Kasab was caught. Govilkar can’t bear to walk by that stretch now. “The faces of my friends and colleagues come back,” he says, still nursing a bullet wound. Senior inspector Hemant Bawdhankar, in charge that night, prefers the stoic demeanour that’s second nature to men in uniform. “A year has passed us by, don’t know how,” he mumbles, trauma and grief sealed firmly within. One of the faces that haunts Govilkar is of assistant police inspector Tukaram Omble, the cop who took bullets in his stomach as Kasab fired but did not let go of his arm till his colleagues had nabbed him.

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Back in Omble’s humble home in Worli police quarters, his wife Tarabai, forced by years of habit, still glances at the main door when the clock strikes 10 at night, the time Omble would return home. She and her daughters see Omble in the Ashok Chakra that occupies pride of the place amidst his medals and awards. “For a week after that night, battling our grief, we had to make sure the media/world knew what my father had done,” says daughter Vaishali, who has completed her BEd and will be a teacher. “We took courage from him, his memory. Papa always used to say that the moment he put his khaki uniform on, all the strength and courage to serve the nation would come into him.” Still, from a protected life of college-and-home, Vaishali was pitchforked into the vicissitudes of running a family and household. With two older sisters married and away, she took charge of her mother and young sister Bharati.

The need of survivors or next-of-kin to get closure is critical to their future life, say psychiatrists. For many, such closure means “hanging Kasab”. Alex Chamberlen, though, takes a more refined view, possibly because he managed to get out alive from an Oberoi restaurant and later recounted the trying hours in detail for a Discovery Channel documentary. A London-based international media consultant, Chamberlen was on an ipl assignment and dining with his friend Rohinton Maloo when hell broke loose. Maloo died. “The family was so loving and positive,” he says, “I drew strength from them.” Wanting to live positive, he married in September. “There is still anger and I want punishment,” he says, “but not in a vengeful way by executing someone. I want that the next generation is not recruited into madrassas.”

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With his wife, clearing agent Jagan Bokade. Shot in the leg at CST, he’s been confined to his house since.

I haven’t been able to bring life back on track, it is still where it was on the night of November 26.
***

Some have managed to move on, others are still precariously perched on the crevice 26/11 left them hanging on. Like thirtysomething Jagan Bokade, shot in his leg at CST and confined to his faraway suburban home in Mira Road since. “I haven’t been able to bring life back on track, it’s still where it was on November 26 night,” rues this clearing agent and father of a six-year-old. His employers have been kind enough to give him a monthly stipend since, but he lives in the hope that his wife will get a government job and he can do some odd jobs from home. There’s also Hussain bi, widow of Peer Pasha, a waiter at Leopold Cafe. Living in a hell-hole slum in Mahim, the five young Pasha children risk being pulled out of school because their mother can’t afford their education. “I was offered a job by the government last year but my in-laws didn’t let me start, saying women in the family don’t go out to work,” she rues.

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Hussain Bi, the widow of Leopold Cafe waiter Peer Pasha, with her five children

I was offered a job by the government last year but my in-laws didn’t let me, saying women in the family don’t work.
***

Life, for those touched by 26/11, means living with all the scars, pain and anger. Perhaps, remorse too, for the small stuff like not saying goodbye. Like the teenager wrote:

Call out
To me this one time
Just once...
Call out
So that I can wish you
Goodbye...

By Smruti Koppikar with Snigdha Hasan

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