“Manish kaka has gone on an airplane to a far off place. He will not be coming back.”

That’s the best Manish’s father, 64-year-old Mohan Divekar, and mother Madhavi can do. For the last two months they have been saying this to little Aryan, who somehow doesn’t seem convinced.

Manish, the Divekars’ only child, was working as a salesman at a mega shopping centre in Dadar. That day, he was coming home to Ramlochan chawl in Jogeshwari and was on the Borivali local. The 6.25 pm blast on the train at Khar station killed him.

Two months after Terrible Tuesday, while the Divekars are still struggling to come to terms with their loss, the chawl in Jogeshwari’s Bandrekarwadi too hasn’t recovered from the shock.

For Manish had always been at the centre of all community activities. Be it a picnic, a sports meet, or a puja, he was always there, leading from the front. “He realised that often boys of the chawl did nothing but hang out in the streets,” recalls friend Rakesh Mane. “He wanted to do something constructive.”

Soon, the Shri Dattaguru Prasadik Bhajan Mandal was formed for the boys to sing devotional songs.

They got themselves a few simple musical instruments and began practising. Three years on, the bhajan mandal is extremely busy — during this Ganpati festival they were flooded with requests to perform at different pandals.

“We felt nothing but despair after he died. Now, we have just one goal — to fulfill his hopes and aspirations through the bhajan mandal,” says Mane with a devotion indicative of Manish's popularity in Bandrekarwadi. “He had this magnetic quality that would attract everybody to him,” says his father, a retired Income Tax department employee. “His friends included people of all ages. He was very good at organising stuff and getting things done.” His parents recall how Manish had promised to buy them an apartment, someday. But he would not leave Bandrekarwadi as he had a “huge circle of friends.”

Manish was working hard towards his dream. He's had a job ever since he passed higher secondary. During the last two months before his untimely death, Manish was doing a course in stock-trading at a private institute. “He would first attend classes and then leave for work (as a salesman) in the evening,’’ says Mohan.

Study and work kept him away from home for long hours. So finally, his parents persuaded him to quit his present job and start visiting the markets to make a career for himself there.

On July 10, Manish quit his salesman's job and brought home his last salary. The next day, he had gone to the institute for a final test. He appeared for it and took the Borivali train to come back home. He died on the way. Mother Madhavi has the last word on her son. “He was a good boy.”