In a voice that is barely audible, 25-year-old Nigam says, ‘‘He had told me before leaving for work that we would go to the bazaar together on Sunday and do all the Diwali shopping.’’ Nigam’s tears have not stopped. Her husband Kuldeep Singh, the driver of the DTC Bahari Mudrika bus, courageously hurled away the bag that held the bomb. It saved the lives of the passengers that day, but left him seriously injured. It’s Chhoti Diwali today, she says, and Kuldeep lies in the ICU having lost his sight, his hearing and a portion of his right arm. A small consolation today was the Delhi government announcing a bravery award in recognition of his presence of mind. Eight months pregnant with the couple’s first child, Nigam finds it difficult to climb to the seventh floor of AIIMS to the ICU. Yet she comes here every morning and evening. ‘‘I cannot stay alone at home. I need to be here with him,’’ she says. At a time when everything seems to have fallen around her just over a year after her marriage, the news of the Rs 2 lakh award brought little joy. ‘‘What will money do? I just want him back hale and hearty.’’ Varsha, Kuldeep’s 11-year-old niece, has thrown out the Diwali diyas and decorations she had put up at home. She waits patiently outside the ICU.
