Rohan is dead. So is his father Dushyant. A week after the serial blasts that rocked the city, Geeta Vyas is struggling to cope with the deaths of her husband and elder son. Her younger son, Yash, 8, has been shifted to a private hospital. But back at the Civil Hospital, people are still praying for him.

“Get someone to do a mahamrityunjay jap for Yash, I know it works, he will survive,” instructs the hospital matron to someone over the phone. “I have two little ones back home,” she adds, almost inaudibly.

Like Geeta, others at the Civil Hospital — the nucleus of the blasts — are trying desperately to get life back to normal. It is not easy. Fear still lurks in their hearts, but there is anger too. Both patients and the medical staff are angry that the sanctity of the red cross was violated.

“There is fear among the patients, many are seeking sedatives for sleeping as the sound of the explosions still echoes in their ears,” says Dr Devang Malodiya. “They (terrorists) have done what nobody would have thought of. The blast was in our own backyard. We were seeing people bleeding, crying, dying before our eyes. The anger, the pain of that moment was unbearable. My senior broke down in tears, abusing the perpetrators,” he recounts.

“It is probably this anger that propelled us to put in our best. We have tried to save as many lives as we could. It was more than just duty, it was an answer to their cowardice,” he says.

... contd.