“After six months, on Kashish’s insistence we opened the house again. She wants to stay here with their daughter Kanishka,” says her father, Madan Lalwani. “She wants the house exactly as her husband Sachin thought of it. Only, minor carpentry work is pending.”

Sachin Khanna had worked hard for his dream house. A sales manager with Gemini Global, a company dealing in light fixtures, he was an asset to his employers. “I still remember the Tata Consultancy Services order. We were all working hard to get it,” recalls his colleague and friend Nidhi Hinduja. “It was a big order for us, but Sachin just got it with ease. He was a genius.”

Lalwani says the company was so happy with him for having bagged the Rs 2-crore deal that his bosses actually branded the lights “esskay” to rhyme with his initials: S.K. No wonder Sachin was doing so well. In fact, Gemini had planned to send him to Bangalore for an exhibition to learn about new light designs and build fresh contacts on July 12.

But Sachin died the day before in the blast on the Khar-Bandra local while returning home. “He called me twice at 5 pm and again at 6:09 pm to tell me about his Bangalore trip. He said he would drop Kashish and Kanishka at my place. Then, suddenly the phone got disconnected,” says Lalwani who has kept the mobile phone he found on him at Bhabha Hospital.

Sachin leaves behind his college sweetheart and wife Kashish (27) and their four-year-old daughter Kanishka who is studying at Malad’s Ryan International. “Ours wasn’t the typical father-in-law, son-in-law relationship,” says Lalwani, whom Sachin called Big B.

“Their love story was something,” he says about his daughter and son-in-law. Last April, the entire family had gone to Kashmir. Coincidently, it was also their wedding anniversary. “It is said love makes people do crazy things. Sachin actually went hunting for pastries and soft drinks at 11 pm to celebrate six years of togetherness.”

During his childhood, Sachin had experienced struggle — especially when the family business of manufacturing looms ran into huge losses. At 16, he enrolled at a Bandra college and continued to help in his father’s business. At 20, he joined the sales department at Gemini Global. “He joined the company on his birthday eight years back. On August 23 last year, we were going to celebrate his birthday in office,” says Hinduja.

To Lalwani, Sachin was more than a son. “It was as if he didn’t just marry my daughter. But married the whole family,” he says recalling the efficiency with which he handled the wedding of Priya, Kashish’s sister. From finalising the menu, fixing decorations to inviting guests, Sachin did everything. “At Priya’s wedding he took complete charge and always said, ‘Big B hum hain na.’”

These days, Kashish still wears her Mangalsutra refusing to believe Sachin is no more.