After two months of treatment, I took up a job with a firm in Chandivali and am also pursuing a part-time MBA course.

There is something else... That day my railway pass was to get over. A few days before 7/11, I went to renew it. While standing in line, I thought of buying a first-class pass because second-class compartments are very crowded. But I wasn’t carrying that much cash, so had to take my regular second-class pass. If I had managed to buy a first-class pass that day, I would have been in the compartment in which the blast occurred. It could have been serious.

One year has passed. You cannot sit and think of what happened. You need to go on. Memories will be there, but these don’t make a difference. I still have the bag I was carrying that day, though I don’t have the books and my other belongings. I have travelled several times by that train again. There’s no fear of any sort, you cannot work like that in Mumbai.

What happened has happened. Life does not stop.

(As told to Swatee Kher)