Mumbai146;s uncommon man

THE TRANSPORTER

8216;The car had blood stains, I had to wash it8217;

SWETA RAMANUJAN

Pay n park boy zoomed into the rescue act, then carefully cleaned the car for the owner

KADIR Ghare was preparing for his afternoon namaaz when he heard the Mumbadevi blast.

The lanky 26-year-old Konkani Muslim gathered friends and scampered to the scene of the explosion, minutes away. What he saw had him rooted, unsure how to help the moaning, blood-soaked victims. Then the plucky pay-and-park attendant remembered the jingling car keys in his pockets. Ghare rushed back, only to return with a red Maruti 800.

8216;8216;The ambulances had not arrived, there were no vehicles to take victims to hospital,8217;8217; he explains. 8216;8216;I was reluctant to take the car without permission. But a cop passing by helped, he told me not to think and to just do it. And I did it,8217;8217; he says.

Ghare and his brother drove the car to the site, picked up seven victims and rushed them to the nearest hospital. He returned to rescue at least a dozen more. 8216;8216;The car had blood stains all over. I was so worried the owner would get upset,8217;8217; he whispers.

Ghare was washing the car when the owner, a Marwari businessman, walked up to him. 8216;8216;I told him what had happened. And you know what? He was too touched to speak.8217;8217; Does he remember how many he helped? 8216;8216;Where was the time for that? Lives were at stake,8217;8217; he mumbles before dashing off. Soon he8217;ll be leaving for Dubai but it may be a while before he can erase the stains from his mind.

THE BLOOD RELATIVES

8216;My blood was the only thing I could give so fast8217;

HAIMA DESHPANDE

Owner and employees of ad agency queued up so that the injured would not die for want of blood

FEAR gave way to anger, depression and finally to the need to do something for the victims. After surfing the net and news channels for any information on the type of help they could offer, Nisha Zutshi 39, owner of ad agency Adcraft, led her team of four to the GT Hospital to donate blood.

8216;8216;I thought that my blood was the only thing I could give at short notice, so we rushed to the hospital, stood in queue and donated blood,8217;8217; says Zutshi. She had also donated blood after the 1993 riots.

Once she took the decision to donate blood she had to just do it. 8216;8216;There was no time to think of whether they used disposable needles or whether the hospital would be clean, my prime concern was to help the victims in some way,8217;8217; she says.

Her employees, visualiser Ann Fernandes 25, media in-charge Manoj Rathod 26 and office boy Raju Marathe 27, make light of their decision, maintaining that in the circumstances, donating blood was the only thing they could think of.

Nisha and her team are not an isolated instance. In fact, within minutes of the blast making headlines for the news channels, people from all walks of life abandoned routine and queued up at hospitals to donate blood.

By Monday evening, hospitals were turning back people, informing them there was enough blood available in the city to tide over the crisis. The serpentine queue at the state-run J J Hospitals prompted dean Dr Gustad Daver to remark, 8216;8216;I have not seen anything like this before. This selflessness is really amazing.8217;8217;

Housing societies, voluntary organisations and common people sought help from local doctors and organised blood donation camps.

While private ambulances rushed the collected blood units to the hospital, citizens were seen manning traffic at hospital gates to help the ambulances have a clear passage.

The impatient ones in queue at the hospitals appealed to the medical staff to hasten the process of collection so that no victim would be lost for lack of blood units.

THE BONE COLLECTOR

8216;If I hadn8217;t picked up body parts, animals would have eaten them8217;

PRACHI JATANIA

Gemstone trader collected five plastic bags of body parts, bones and teeth for postmortem

WHEN he heard the explosion, Mohammed Iqbal rushed out of his home at Nakoda Street to Zaveri Bazaar, in his bathroom slippers.

An expert gem stone trader, Iqbal had never witnessed anything as gruesome as the scene of a blast. The shy 40-something man began pulling trapped residents of Navnidhan Building. Then he noticed the flesh on the street. So he simply went on to sort out the spattered limbs, bones, even the teeth of the dead.

8216;8216;They are humans, after all. The scattered body parts could have been eaten by animals, so I had to pick them up and hand them over to hospitals,8217;8217; he explains.

He pursued his collection steadfastly, rummaging through what was left of the taxi that blew up, under heaps of glass and metal, even in residential balconies.

Meanwhile, his joint family of 22 members were fretting, unaware of his whereabouts. His mother Mehmoona Rehman recalls, 8216;8216;He just ran outside without saying anything and didn8217;t return for five hours. All sorts of horrifying thoughts zoomed through my head.8217;8217;

Armed with nothing more than a plastic bag and a glove, the soft-spoken Iqbal handed over five bags of flesh and bones to the J J Hospital postmortem officers on the evening of the blast. A day later, he was back at work.

8216;8216;But I could not eat dinner and did not sleep a wink that night. My mind kept recapping the images of those helpless people,8217;8217; he recalls. Fazlu Rehman, his younger brother, says with pride: 8216;8216;Bhaijaan8217;s always been the generous helper. He often gives financial help to neighbours in need. His wife, who was in Jaipur with their five children, was anxious for his safety, but once she knew what he had done, she was overjoyed.8217;8217;

Iqbal says he was disturbed not so much by the sight of severed bodies, but by the 8216;8216;heinous crime that killed innocents.8217;8217; Black Monday, he says, will haunt him for a long time, he says grimly.

A thorough family man, Iqbal8217;s favourite getaway is Savai-Madhavpur, a hilly region dotted with wildlife sanctuaries. He is looking to go there soon, to put behind him the memories of the bestiality of man.

THE HEALERS

8216;The doc stitched me though I was last in line8217;

RANJANI RAMASWAMY

No breakfasts, not even a biscuit. At JJ, memories of 1993 kept the medicos going

8216;8216;WHEN I reached hospital, I was bleeding like a river from the back of my head. A nice doctor noticed the open gash in my head. Though I was last in line, he stitched it and rushed away before I could say thanks or get his name.8217;8217;

Reeta Vishwakarma 22, her head swathed snugly in a bandage, at J J Hospital, is not the only patient with such a story to tell. They did grumble about the media and politicians8217; visits, the insipid food and indifferent toilets but nobody questioned the medical staff8217;s commitment.

Ten years go, hospital dean Dr G B Davar 51, a professor of surgery, had grappled with eight operation theatres working 24/7. 8216;8216;I had seen it all during 1992-1993. Blast victims then and now are no different except that last time we had three times the number of patients we have now, with more gruesome injuries,8217;8217; recalls Davar.

He adds methodically, 8216;8216;Comparisons are illogical, since all victims of violence have their legitimate grief.8217;8217;

Tired surgical residents say they have no time for anger, grief and empathy. 8216;8216;None of us had time for food the first two days. Not even a biscuit,8217;8217; says a head nurse at ward 18. 8216;8216;But this time no one really complained, because of our horrible memories of 1993. We just wanted to get through this the best way possible.8217;8217;

With over 50 operations completed by mid-week since Monday 8212; many were complex neurosurgeries to remove shrapnel and glass 8212; Davar has a free moment to remember a gun-shot victim 10 years ago. 8216;8216;A Muslim man had arrived, bleeding endlessly from his hip. After a long operation, we somehow managed to save his life. I would have forgotten all about him, but he makes it a point to often visit me at the hospital, limping here on his crutch,8217;8217; says Davar.

If anything has changed in the past 10 years it8217;s that this time around, the hospital had two cupboards full of disaster management supplies. And a lobby help desk with 14 volunteers taking turns to work in six-hour shifts.

At the mortuary, two doctors, eight assistants and a police official worked 48 straight hours to deal with the grieving families and long-drawn procedures to retrieve bodies. 8216;8216;Families cried, swore and even cursed us. It is their right, and our duty, to deal with this. It8217;s just that too many deaths at one go makes it unbearable,8217;8217; says a mortuary employee.

THE CARETAKER

8216;My friend is injured, his family shouldn8217;t suffer any more8217;

RANJANI RAMASWAMY

Polio-crippled carpenter plies injured friend8217;s trade, turns over earnings to his family

THE pigeons have returned to the Gateway. But Harish Sharnappa 27 is not satisfied. He patiently sells chana bird feed in little plastic mugs, 10 rupees a mugful. No bargains entertained here. 8216;8216;These pigeons are nothing. There are usually hundreds more. I hope they are all back by the time Ashok returns,8217;8217; says Sharnappa enthusiastically, his polio-crippled legs splayed uncomfortably across the concrete slab. He has been sitting on Ashok8217;s spot for the past two days.

As Ashok Shinde 32 recuperates from facial injuries caused by hundreds of small shards of glass lodged in one side of his face at GT Hospital, his homefires have been kept alive by his best friend Sharnappa. 8216;8216;He has a wife, father and two small children. Deducting a few small expenses for food I will hand over the daily earnings 8212; around Rs 100 8212; to his family till he can get back to work,8217;8217; says Sharnappa, a carpenter at the Fellowship of the Physically Handicapped, Haji Ali.

8216;8216;When I came to Mumbai as a runaway child seven or eight years old, Ashok looked out for me in every way possible. I remember we both sold postcards together, chatting and laughing all the time. Bahut masti karte the. Later, he got into chana selling and I would move around in my handicapped cycle selling soft drinks to tourists. Those were the good days,8217;8217; reminisces Sharnappa, his face beaming.

Through Ashok8217;s friendship Sharnappa reconciled with his family in Karnataka, got married and recently joined the carpentry apprenticeship at Haji Ali. 8216;8216;I have been everything from a beggar to a carpenter, and I am quite the vagabond. But Shinde8217;s family should not suffer more than they already have. The people who claim to sympathise will soon vanish. I am just making sure that his livelihood doesn8217;t vanish,8217;8217; says Sharnappa. 8216;8216;Bolnewalla aur karnewalla main farak hona chahiye na.8217;8217;

THE HONEST CITIZEN

8216;Someone8217;s loss could not be my gain8217;

SWETA RAMANUJAN

Jeweller finds bag of gold, even owner is shocked when he returns it intact

8216;8216;I am fed up of these interviews,8217;8217; a tired Satish Raikar grumbles. 8216;8216;I didn8217;t expect so much publicity. I just did my duty as a morally upright citizen.8217;8217;

What this modest 37-year-old did saved a blast victim the agony of looking for lost valuables. On the day of the blast, Raikar found a bag containing gold jewellery worth close to Rs 1 lakh. He tracked the owner down 8212; a Rajasthan resident who was injured in the blast 8212; and returned the booty. Much to the surprise of the owner and the rest of the city.

8216;8216;I was working in my workshop when the blast occurred,8217;8217; says Raikar, who owns a gold jewellery workshop on Dhanji Street, Zaveri Bazaar, two buildings away from the blast site. 8216;8216;I did what I do every time there8217;s an accident or incident. I rushed to the spot.8220;

Like others in the rescue act, Raikar had no time to stop and think. He began picking up the injured and helping them into vehicles bound for the hospital. 8216;8216;Just then, I spotted a cloth bag. I tried handing it over to the cops,8217;8217; says Raikar. 8216;8216;But they feared it could contain explosives and advised me to abandon it. However, something prompted me to open the bag.8217;8217;

Raikar went to friend Kanhaiya Kakkad8217;s shop down the road and checked the contents of the bag in his presence. He found vouchers in the name of Hukkum Singh Raghav. Raikar and Kakkad then locked up the bag and returned to rescue work. 8216;8216;Later, on the evening news, I spotted the same name in the list of injured. The next day, I called the number printed on those vouchers. The person at the other end told me that Raghav was a regular customer,8217;8217; Raikar says.

On day three, Raikar and his friend went to Gokuldas Tejpal Hospital. 8216;8216;I returned the bag to Raghav. He was shocked beyond words,8217;8217; Raikar says. 8216;8216;He gave me the bag for safe-keeping and collected it the day he was discharged.8217;8217;

From that day, this Lalbaug resident has been the subject of several post-blast stories. 8216;8216;I was very touched by all the calls I got,8221; he laughs. But all this doesn8217;t change the fact that the blast has shaken Raikar. 8216;8216;It was like a death in my family. No true Mumbaiite will ever cause such harm to this city. It has to be someone to whom this place means nothing,8217;8217; he says.

And what does Mumbai mean to him? 8216;8216;It8217;s my motherland,8217;8217; he states, 8216;8216;and I am a Mumbaiite.8217;8217;

THE PARAMEDIC

8216;How do you pick up crushed bodies? I was so afraid limbs would fall off8217;

RESHMA PATIL

Rescuers used billboards as stretchers, tempos doubled up as ambulances

A HANDCART selling bananas on Yusuf Meherali Road. The hoardings that crashed down under the impact of the blast. They doubled up as stretchers until the ambulances arrived at bleeding Mumbadevi.

8216;8216;How do you pick up crushed bodies? I was so afraid twisted arms and legs would fall off if I was not careful,8217;8217; says Adil Abbas Punjabi, the first to rush to the broken, burning bodies. His 53-year-old store Nav Bharat Shoes was under noisy repair opposite the taxi that blew up at Zaveri Bazaar.

The sturdy Muslim confesses he flinched just once when he first picked up a victim. 8216;8216;From the debris of Ajooba Footwear I removed the body of a boy in his twenties. His head had rolled out on the street.8217;8217; The image has haunted him since then.

Punjabi stopped counting after 15 bodies. 8216;8216;I was shouting for help, but even my employees at the shoe shop were trembling in shock. Many just stood motionless,8217;8217; he says.

After the first few minutes, local Muslims rushed to his aid. They loaded the mangled bodies into an old-fashioned tempo that Khurshid Ahmed then coaxed to speed faster and faster towards J J Hospital. In those precious 10 minutes before the first ambulances arrived, Khurshid had driven 18 men and women to medical aid. He returned quickly, set for a second scramble to the hospital. But this time around, he had only dead passengers to drive away.

8216;8216;Anybody who moved an arm or limb even slightly was alive and had to be picked up first. That8217;s how we chose the victims,8217;8217; says Khurshid. The blood on his shirt still has not washed away.

In these narrow pockets of Zaveri Bazaar 8212; site of 13,000 jewellery and diamond shops or offices 8212; tempo drivers known simply as Osman, Salimbhai, Khurshid Fakhruddin and a Muslim cabbie who was a stranger to the area made four frantic trips to the hospitals. They have disappeared back into the business of ordinary lives.

Yusuf Meherali Road kept its peace even in 1993 and that peace has survived the blast opposite its Mumbadevi mandir. In the afternoons, Anand the paanwala who does not have a paan shop anymore, Kamal Tripathi the sugarcane juice seller who8217;s mutilated crushing machine stands inside the stay-away yellow tape, and Tilak Raj, owner of Jodhpur Shoes Store, amble over to meet a bandaged Shoaib Bhurana. He limps after a fall from the second storey of M R Watch and Co. 8216;8216;Is everything okay?8217;8217; asks the friendly neighbourhood gathering.