They were about 15-20 boisterous men, mostly stockbrokers and diamond merchants, playing cards and munching on snacks in an unspoken bond of everyday shared travel. Two days after the Mumbai blasts, the silence of the dead hung heavy over the 5.36 p.m. local train racing towards Borivali.The lively group, comprising mostly Gujaratis, who would take the 5.36 p.m. local from the Charni Road station after it left Churchgate perhaps did not even know one another's names. But the camaraderie born of sharing the space day after day was enough.
On Thursday evening, the group seemed to have been halved, several of them feared dead on that terrible Tuesday when bombs ripped apart first class compartments killing about 200 and injuring more than 700 people.
Amongst them was 44-year-old Kundan Shah and 20-year-old Lalit Kakaliya, both diamond merchants working at a leading export house who boarded the train just as they did everyday for the last journey of their lives.
Their compartment blew up at Jogeshwari station at 6.25 pm.
With that died part of the lively Gujarati group.
In the mournful quiet, the remnants of the group and the other passengers remembered the dead and their fortuitous survival.
"They made every journey a pleasure for us fellow passengers. Today, without them, there is a silence of the dead," said Dewan Singh, an investment banker who occasionally travels by the same train.
"What you see today is not the usual noisy and boisterous ambience that prevailed in this compartment daily. The group is missing and we fear that many of them may have died on Tuesday," said Singh, who missed the train Tuesday.
"Though, I never knew anyone of them personally, they were familiar to me by face. They were my 'train-friends'," he said, likening them to a bunch of schoolboys returning home.
Added another regular commuter Arjunrao Deshmukh, a marketing executive with an IT firm: "The group was a fun-loving lot who would play cards on their briefcases and even pass snacks around to fellow commuters."
"The elders in the group had fixed seats, usually the prized window seats. The group used to animatedly discuss how the stock market was moving and were ever willing to offer investment tips to anyone interested."
On that day, Deshmukh had boarded another first class compartment in the train. On Thursday, he was back in the same space to look for his travelling companions.
"Though I was lucky to have escaped unhurt, I have returned in search of my ever smiling train friends," he said.
"I will wait and see who all turn up in the next few days."
Sources said at least 28 Gujaratis working in the stock market and diamond trade were killed in Tuesday's train blasts.
(IANS)
