Dara and Rupa Mody were, in a way, revisiting a deep personal grief on Thursday, when they stepped into their old house in Gulbarg society for the first time after the loss of their son Azhar, who went missing in the massacre that took place in the colony during the 2002 post-Godhra riots. And actors Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika, who have lived through that grief in their imagination by playing the Modys in the movie Parzania, too, were seeing the Parsi couple, and the colony, for the first time.

“I had thought I’d have so much to tell the family when I meet them, but now when I am actually meeting them, I can’t say anything,” said Shah. “I just admire the silent strength with which, the family endured the pain and kept their hope of finding its child back.”

The Modys were among those who had taken shelter at former MP Ehsaan Jafri’s house in the Meghaninagar colony on February 28, 2002, when it was attacked by a mob. In the melee after the MP’s house was set ablaze, 13-year-old Azhar was separated from his sister Binaifer, whose hand he was holding.