Clara reached home by 10:30 pm and found Louis hadn’t returned. It was later that she and her daughter Sarena, 19, learnt from Louis’s friend, who was also injured, that Louis, bleeding profusely, had been lying on the tracks and had asked a passerby to call up his family. But the stranger had walked away with his cellphone.

“We didn’t know how and where to look for him. So we remained glued to the TV thinking that we might spot him in some hospital. Sarena’s friends searched the hospitals without success,’’ says Clara.

Next morning, Clara went to the kitchen to make coffee as usual, believing that Louis would walk in any time. Sarena, her friends and neighbours went to the hospitals. They found Louis’s body at Sion hospital and contacted Clara. “Mom completely lost control, shook daddy’s leg and told him to get up, but he didn’t,” says Sarena, breaking down.

“Even today I send SMSes on his number, keep calling despite knowing there is no one at the other end to receive it,” says Clara.

“A diehard fan of vegetarian food”, Louis made it a point that Clara cooked it exactly the way it tasted in his Gujarati colleague’s tiffin. “I would get irritated when he demanded vegetarian food even in the evenings,” says Clara. “We need fish curry and rice at least once a day, I would tell him.” But Louis knew how to convince his wife: “He always sang Jab Koi Baat Bigad Jaye and down went my temper.”

... contd.