He wanted to move, when the UTI job offer came it was too late

They realised Swapnil was a victim of the Borivali blast when they found his name at Bhagwati Hospital’s list of the dead. They identified him by his cellphone and the silver and gold rings he was wearing.

“When we reached here the next afternoon, they had already kept the body in the morgue. He must have died on the spot,’’ says Prakash.

True to the Mumbai spirit, help was at hand. Residents of the colony, including many strangers, made funeral arrangements even before the family could bring the body home. “Everything was ready. Just about everyone helped us… I don’t even know who,’’ he recalls.

‘‘Like a typical Bombayite, he never wanted to leave the city,’’ says the father as the family sits in the living room talking of a void they can never fill. ‘‘Now, we are trying to decide what to do about this house,’’ he says.

One of those who had helped that day and whom the family doesn’t know comes over: ‘‘I knew your son’s face. He used to return around 7.30 pm and always wore a smile.’’ He is Manohar Shinde, local Sena shakha pramukh.

Only a year ago, Swapnil got married to Swapnaja and they lived in Mumbai with his younger brother, Shreyas. ‘‘It’s sheer coincidence that they have such rhyming names. They knew each other for six years. When she came home the first time, we told her, ‘you are not coming here as a daughter-in-law but as our daughter’,’’ says Prakash.

On July 11, Swapnil was in town. Swapnaja had gone to her parents in Dahisar. Shreyas had left the day before to join his parents in Coimbatore to pursue his MBA.

Prakash, a retired electronics engineer is working with Chinmaya International Residential School as a consultant while his wife (Swapnil’s mother) is a teacher there.

The Okes shifted to Coimbatore a year ago to give the newly weds ‘‘some privacy’’. It was also a ‘‘career move’’ for Swapnil’s mother.

‘‘When I was working, my career was priority and she was looking after the children. Now, it’s her turn,’’ says Prakash.

The Okes used to stay at Dombivali, a suburb on the central line. Swapnil was born there. They shifted to Borivali in 1995 after he finished school. Equally passionate about books and sports, Swapnil went on to graduate from Royal College, Mira Road — he was in the college football team, says Shreyas — and had already started working while pursuing an MCom (distance learning) from the Kalina campus of Mumbai University.

‘‘I was confident that if he went for any exam—bank, competitive or even an interview—he would be successful. He used to read anything and everything,’’ says Prakash.

‘‘During his college days, he worked first at Datacraft and then with the phone banking section of ICICI Bank,’’ says Shreyas.

His full-time job with Merck Shipping meant long hours and coming home as late as 2 am. So he shifted to DHL.

And it was only recently, that Swapnil finally gave up his whole-hearted allegiance to Mumbai. ‘‘He went for an interview with UTI bank after agreeing to work anywhere in the country,’’ says Prakash. ‘‘Two days after the blasts, we got a call saying he had got the job.’’

On Terrible Tuesday, Swapnil was last seen by a friend of Swapnaja’s as he was boarding the train at Bandra station.

‘‘Living in Mumbai and travelling by train, you know what time you leave home but never know when you will came back,’’ says Prakash. Or if you will ever come back—that’s what the family is trying to cope with.