My brother (left), though he had a railway pass for the first class, used to usually travel by second class.
On the day of the blasts, he boarded a first class compartment.
That day, my mother had landed in Canada on a vacation that had been delayed for a long time. As soon as she landed there, she had to return to India. It took her three days to get a ticket on a plane back.
Sanford's death has hit us all very badly. His wife and 10-year-old daughter are yet to recover from the blow.
But look at Mumbai a few months after the incident. Every morning, when I enter the Bandra suburban train station, I see cops in the security post lazing around. Sometimes there is not even a single policeman there.
In other places in the city too, the security has slackened. The common man doesn't ask for anything beyond basic security measures from the establishment. If they can't even provide that, what good are they?
Also, why does the government fool the public by saying that 187 people died in the attack? I saw more than that in each of the hospitals and mortuaries.
I know many people in my neighborhood who were discharged from the hospitals and came back home and died in a day or two. When the family members approached the government for compensation, they said 'Your husband did not die in the blast'. What is this logic?
Speaking of compensation, think what Rs 5 lakh can do in this day and age? Many of the victims were the sole breadwinners of their families. What will a first class passenger's child, who has been living with high hopes all these years, do with a Class 4 railway job?!
At a personal level, it is still difficult to come to grips with the fact that Sanford is not with is. It's like here today, gone tomorrow.
Agreed that Mumbai is the commercial hub and life out here is a rat race. But, today when I step out, I don't know if I'll come back home in one piece.
When I tried to explain the concept of death and terrorism to my three-year-old daughter, she understands it only enough to ask me to stay indoors.
The only way out we know is to turn to sports. We will organise an All-Mumbai football tournament in January in Sanford's memory.
They say time will heal all wounds. All we can do is hope, and wait.
How should India fight terror? Tell us!
Text: Krishna Kumar
Also read: Mumbai counts its dead
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