THE 13 LIVES

RADHIKA PRASAD MISHRA, 70
He lived alone in a rented house in Dehalwi Darwaza in Faizabad, where he had been living for the last 30 years. His daughters and son-in-laws who lived in Lucknow asked him to move to Lucknow on many occasions. But they always got a no for an answer.
Mishra belonged to Makhdumpur village of Ambedkar Nagar district but came to Faizabad years ago to practise law and stayed on.
“My father-in-law graduated in law from Lucknow University in 1949. We had requested him to stop his practice and stay with us in Lucknow, but he refused to leave Faizabad,” says Mishra’s son-in-law Prakash Pandey, a Trade Tax Officer.
Prakash often came with his wife to visit his father-in-law. Today, he had come to sift through and pack Mishra’s belongings.
Mishra used to visit his daughters in Lucknow every Saturday. “On Saturday he was always in Lucknow and every Sunday evening he would leave for Faizabad so that he could attend court on Monday,” says Mishra’s second son-in-law Sanjay Tewari, a businessman.
Their only regret is that Mishra didn’t take their suggestion and move out of Faizabad.

FAGU RAM, 40
Fagu Ram, a labourer, did not work at the Faizabad court. But on November 23, Ram, had gone to the court to attend the hearing of a case he was fighting in court.
“My father was a labourer. He used to paint houses. Since he had filed a case, he visited Faizabad frequently. He left the village at 6 in the morning to reach the court in time,” says Ram’s 19-year-old son Shivdarshan Raghav.
Raghav heard of his father’s death through a villager of Mumtaznagar. “I could not believe that my father was dead even after seeing his body in the hospital,” he says.

KESHARI PRASAD, 55
It was a chance visit to the Faizabad court that cost Keshari Prasad his life. A labourer who worked at construction sites, Prasad had little to do with courts. But the 55-year-old accompanied his friend to visit a lawyer the day the bomb went off in the court. His wife Pyara Devi struggles to come to terms with loss. “Why did he go to the court?” she asks listlessly.
With her husband gone, she’s wondering how to take care of her three daughters, one of whom is married and lives with them.
Prasad used to earn about Rs 1,500 a month and the family would somehow stretch that over the month. But now even that has gone. When she is not worrying over the future, Pyara Devi is agonising over the past. “Why was my husband killed? Can the police trace his killers?” she asks.
She has no idea what terrorism is all about and is perplexed over why her husband was killed. “ Koi kisi ko kyon mar dega (why would anyone kill others)?” she mumbles.

MANOJ, 12
He was the youngest among the nine killed in the twin blasts at Varanasi. The eldest of seven children, Manoj belonged to a Dalit family that had migrated to Varanasi from Uttar Pradesh’s Akbarpur district a few years ago.
He was just 12 but it was his earnings that his family depended on. He polished shoes at the Varanasi court, earning about Rs 50 a day. On November 23, Manoj left home in the morning. The money he would have earned that day would have bought the family their dinner. The evening, instead, brought them the news of his death.
Now his parents—father Jilayeet who works as an ear cleaner—and mother Savitra mourn with their family.
“Nothing can compensate for the loss of my son. Not even the Rs 5 lakh that Behenji (Mayawati) has given us as compensation. Ask her to bring my son back,” says Savitra.

KATWARU YADAV, 60
Katwaru Yadav had dropped by at the Varanasi court to seek legal advice from his lawyer neighbour Nityanand Singh on a land-related case that he was involved in. That was when the second blast took place.
“He had earlier planned to meet Nityanand on November 26. The court hearing for his case was on December 3. But he changed his mind at the last minute and instead went to the court on Friday,” says Yadav’s 31-year old son Babu Lal.
A lecturer, Lal was teaching NCC cadets in Mau district when he first heard of the blasts. He called up one of his friends in Varanasi and asked him to help his brother find his father. The search ended at the mortuary of the Varanasi District Hospital. Yadav was among the five people brought dead to the hospital.
Through life, Yadav had worked hard, tending to his cattle, with the sole aim of putting his children through school and college. With his son Babu Lal getting a teaching position at the Mau PG College, things were looking up for the family. But, says Lal, “we didn’t know our happy days were numbered.”

BRAHMA PRAKASH SHARMA, 38
One of the three lawyers killed in the Varanasi blasts, Sharma left behind his wife Abha and two children Sejal and Shivam. He had been practising law for the last 15 years.
“My father wanted me to wear his black coat one day. Now I will wear it not only to become a lawyer but to ensure that no terrorist is able to escape the severest possible punishment,” says Sejal, a first-year student at the Banaras Hindu University.
Brother Shivam, who aspires to become an engineer, now dreams of building mechanisms that can check terror attacks.

BUDHRAJ VERMA, 28
Budhraj Verma, a lawyer at the Varanasi Court, wanted his children to excel in academics and make it big. But now his wife Sangita doesn’t know how she will bring up son Shivam, 6, and daughters Anuradha, 4, and Shalu, 2, and take of her in-laws.
The family, which stays at Kanahari village on the outskirts of Varanasi, also includes Budhraj’s two unemployed brothers.
“How are we going to take care of his children?” wonders father Deen Dayal.
He adds, “Maybe we can buy more agricultural land with the Rs 5 lakh compensation we received. That can help us educate Budhraj’s children.”

YAGYA NARAYAN SINGH, 58
He had gone to the court in Varanasi to testify in a land dispute case and was caught in the blast. Singh is survived by his three daughters and wife who suffers from blood cancer.
“His three daughters were married and Singh was earning just for the treatment of his wife that cost about Rs 1 lakh every year,” said his nephew Anjani Singh, who too was injured in the blast.
Narayan Singh used to work at a hosiery store in Varanasi.
“Maybe the compensation money will help get my aunt proper treatment, something my uncle had always wanted,” says Anjani.

AJAY PANDEY, 32
Every time his parents want to hear him, they turn on the cassette player. Cassettes of the songs Ajay had sung, is all his parents have of him. A Bhojpuri singer, Ajay Pandey belonged to Aidwa village—just 3 km away from writer Munshi Premchand’s village Lamhi.
Though Ajay sung Bhojpuri songs and bhajans, it didn’t fetch him much money. So, three months ago he started working as a munshi for a senior lawyer at the Varanasi court.
With their only working member gone, the family is still waiting for the compensation cheque from the government.
“The only thing we have of our son are the cassettes of his melodious songs,” says his mother Shanti. Pandey’s wife Namita, meanwhile, sits quietly next to his harmonium.

BHOLA NATH SINGH., 48
A senior lawyer at the Varanasi court, Bhola Nath Singh was killed in the first blast that took place at the Civil Court building.
Originally from Jaunpur, Singh moved to Varanasi years go. He leaves behind his wife Sheila Singh and sons Vikrant who works in an IT company in Mumbai, Prashant, a third-year law student at the Allahabad University and Yashwant who is studying engineering at the same college.
“I have lost my father but I will ensure that I carry forward the principles of honesty that he abided by in his legal practice,” says Prashant.

KAMRU ZAMAN, 35
He belonged to Marufpur village of neighbouring Chandauli district but Kamru Zaman shifted to his in-laws’ house in Varanasi’s Pakki Bazaar after he married Darkashan Anjum in 2000. That year he also set up a photocopying-cum-photo studio behind the Civil Court Building. He called it Bharat Studio.
When the bomb went off in the court building, it killed Zaman on the spot. His family, both in Varanasi and in his native Chandauli, is in mourning but his five-year-old daughter Aksha Qamar is too young to understand what has happened. “When will Abbu return?” she asks her mother repeatedly.