One year on… QUAID NAJMI meets two families still carrying the scars of 26-11 An uncut birthday cake and four bullets

Life and death, celebration and mourning... it all came together in a bewildering flash for the Sharma family that Nov 26 one year ago when terrorists struck Mumbai and Sushil Kumar Sharma crumpled to a hail of bullets on his son’s 13th birthday just as the party was under way.

The 48-year-old assistant chief ticketing inspector with Central Railway (CR) joined duty at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), promising to be back before son Aditya cut his cake. But that was a date never to be kept.

Regret and a continuing sadness shadow the lives of his 45-year-old wife Ragini and their sons Aditya, now getting ready for his father’s first death anniversary and his 14th birthday, and 16-year-old Siddhant.

As the nation remembers the 170 who died when terrorists laid a three-day bloody siege over India’s financial capital, the Sharmas remember the husband and the father. And they replay in their minds his last conversation, his last moments, his last goodbye.

“He had bought two cakes that day and wanted to have a small party with friends and neighbours. Usually, he would take an off on our children’s birthdays, but that day he had some urgent work so he went to office with a promise of returning early,” remembers Ragini, fighting back her tears.

The mood that evening, she recalls, was celebratory. In a party mood that whole evening, the family watched a cricket match at their home in suburban Kalyan, blissfully unaware of the terror drama unfolding in the city -- and at the CST where an estimated 60 people lost their lives in just a few hours.

Just before 9.30 p.m., Sharma called home, asking for the latest score and instructed the family to go ahead and cut the cake. But Aditya insisted on cutting the second cake in his dad’s presence.

Ragini has been able to piece together his last moments.

Sharma was on his usual rounds on the suburban platforms when he heard the sounds of bullets soon after 9.30 p.m. Mistaking it for a gang war, he immediately informed the Railway Control Room and requested them to halt trains coming towards CST to prevent the loss of innocent lives.

As he waited, a colleague informed him of the terror attacks. And Sharma decided to go out and see what he could do to help.

As he went near platform No. 1, Sharma saw a small girl called Pooja running towards him, screaming in terror and pain as she had been hit by at least four bullets. He tried to whisk her to safety, but four bullets hit him too and he fell to the floor, life ebbing out as the bloody terror drama continued all around him.

Back home, the first inkling of something