It's at 6 am every day that Pandurang Chikne (28) remembers his dead brother. In his tiny, attic-style home in a suburban slum in Mumbai, the first thought that strikes the school bus driver when he crawls out of bed is that he won’t be tripping on his still-asleep brother’s legs.

“He had long legs na,” Pandurang says. Then, pointing to the trapdoor that serves as the entrance, he says: “He’d be stretched out till there.” At 5 feet 7, 25-year-old Arvind was considered quite tall in their little village of Umbri in Taluka Poladpur, Raigad District.

A champion cricketer with genuine swing when he bowled, Arvind had come to Mumbai dreaming of a job in the armed forces. His dream died after some failed attempts at army and navy physical endurance tests. And though he pursued other Mumbai dreams for a year, those died too when a window bar from one of 7/11’s ill-fated trains pierced his abdomen.

He’d been approaching Jogeshwari station’s platform, to take a train in the opposite direction, when the blast occurred. He died on the spot.

A BA from Sunderrao More College of Arts and Commerce in Poladpur, Arvind came to Mumbai in 2003, trying unsuccessfully along with a cousin to get recruited into the army. Unable to speak English, he found even his degree useless. Finally, he found an apprenticeship at a semi-precious jewellery manufacturing unit in Jogeshwari, staying at his workplace for a year while learning the trade. Four months before he died, he shifted into his brother’s home in Ghatkopar, to live with Pandurang, his wife Chhaya and two-year-old daughter Mitali.

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