Three years ago, when Navin Rauniyar, a post-graduate from the University of Pune, was staring at a dark future—he wasn’t able to get into a Ph.D programme, nor did he have the resources to apply to a foreign university—he met Vishwas Thorat. And his life changed.

For, Vishwas lived his life helping others.

‘‘I don’t know where I would have been without his support. I am proud that he was part of my life,’’ Rauniyar told us from Fort Worth, Texas, where he is pursuing a Ph.D in the Department of Molecular Biology and Immunology at the University of North Texas—thanks to Thorat who arranged for financial help when he needed it most.

On 7/11, Vishwas was rushing to his Kandivali home early to cook a meal for his 79-year-old bed-ridden mother, Nirmala. He died in the blast at Bandra.

‘‘Many people called up after the incident telling me how he had helped them in their darkest hour,’’ says elder sister Chitra Pawar, ‘‘and I didn’t know many of them.’’

Like Manisha, a first year commerce student of Mumbai University, who can’t believe it.

‘‘The year was 1986 and my wife was pregnant. I was penniless and did not know what to do,’’ recalls her father Mahendra Kumar. ‘‘Vishwas saw me sitting in a restaurant, sipping tea. When I told him of my condition, he took out Rs 1,500 and thrust it into my hand. Today, Manisha is 20 years old.”

‘‘I would scold him for not keeping anything for himself and helping the needy with whatever resources he had,’’ says Chitra, seated in the drawing room of her tastefully decorated flat at Pune’s Mahatma Gandhi Society. ‘‘He had a refined aesthetic sense and used to decorate my house with these,’’ she adds, pointing to the array of traditional artefacts and paintings that adorn the walls and cupboards.

... contd.