Youngest of three siblings, Ajay decided to celebrate his July 13 birthday with the family. Most of all, he wanted to surprise his father, Gokul Sharma, and so decided to take a few days off from running his own business and come down to Mumbai from Nagpur. He did, only to find to his horror that Gokul was one of those who had died in the July 11 serial train blasts.

“I guess, it was never to be,” says Ajay. “What’s more painful is that within three months we have lost two more members of our family, Gokul’s parents,” says his widow Usha (56). “The void he leaves behind can never be filled.”

These days, the Sharmas find solace in their memories. Gokul’s love for sweets, his restless nature that prevented him from idling at home and his habit of writing down little notes on the day’s events, however small, however nondescript.

“Everything in this house reminds us of him,” says Usha, who likes to describe her husband as a workaholic. The word, “retirement” did not exist in his dictionary, she adds. An electrical engineer by qualification, he was executive officer at the Cuffe Parade head office of Harinagar Sugar Mills. He’d been with them for 40 years.

“He was very loyal to his job,” says daughter-in-law Seema Sharma (29). So, in spite of the fact that his two sons — 31-year-old Amit and 29-year-old Ajay—are well-established, Gokul never felt the need to “rest” at home. “He was passionate about his work and worked seven-days-a-week even if it was Holi or Diwali,” says Usha.

... contd.