Twenty-eight years ago, when Louis Sequeria first saw Clara’s photograph in his cousin’s wedding album, he was charmed by her simple yet elegant looks. He immediately tried getting in touch with her. But when that didn’t work out, he barged into her office — actor Sunil Dutt’s establishment— at Bandra and introduced himself.

“We first danced on January 1 at another wedding in 1979 and tied the knot in October the same year,” says Clara, 52, with a smile. On July 11, the blast on a train at Matunga station snatched him from her.

A recruitment consultant at Fact Personnel Agency, Louis was returning home in Malad from his Grant Road office. “I still cannot figure out why he boarded the Virar Fas— it does not halt at either Malad or Kandivali from where our house is very near,” says Clara, who was on another train bombed around the same time that day. But she was fortunate — the coach targeted was several coaches away from hers.

“The train had just left Khar station. We heard a loud noise and it stopped. People were running and shouting at a distance ‘bomb hai, bhago’. The women in my compartment told me to jump. I was scared because of the height. Also, I am diabetic. But I jumped,’’ says Clara.

As she collected herself and looked ahead, she saw flesh and blood on the tracks, and the injured crying out in pain in front of the bombed compartment. “My hands and legs were shaking, I was shivering, but all I could think of was Louis. I tried calling him again and again, but his cellphone was not reachable. I thought he was safe and wanted him to pick me up,’’ she says.

... contd.