What's the point of voting: 26/11 victim's kin

The rather large Gohil joint family lives in a small, two-storied structure in one of the narrow lanes of Colaba market in south Mumbai.

When you walk up to the first floor and ask for Harish Gohil's mother, a grey-haired woman, who is sitting and sewing, gets up and comes out. A shadow crosses Damayanti's Gohil's tired, sad but kindly face when she learns you are a reporter. But she graciously offers you a chair on the terrace of the building. Their home directly faces Nariman House. She is joined by her niece (by marriage) Rina Hasmukh Gohil.

"We have not thought about voting. We have our own problems," says Rina on Damayanti's behalf.

Harish Gohil, Damayanti's only son (her husband, a tailor, died about 25 years ago), taught dance at the neighbourhood schools -- Holy Name, St Joseph's and others. He was also studying computers.

Harish, 25, was shot by the terrorists who took over Nariman House, the home of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg and a Jewish home centre, at about 9.45 pm on November 26 last year.

An injured Harish had fallen on the street, and he could not rescued from the line of fire till his uncle pulled him to the entrance of their building. He was rushed to hospital but died as the taxi edged past Regal theatre, just near the Prince of Wales Museum.

Several leaders came by to see the family after Harish's death. Damayanti recalls that Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray's wife Sharmila, Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Raj Purohit and Congress MP Milind Deora all stopped by.

Vinod Shekhar, local Congress legislator Annie Shekhar's son, helped the family store Harish's body at the St George's hospital. "The morgue was overflowing. They were not allowing us to store his body there till the funeral. Vinod Shekhar helped us then," they remember.

Adds Rina, "Our life has changed. They (the terrorists) should never have been allowed to come here! How did they come here? Now we know what the families of the victims of the railway blasts (Mumbai's July 11, 2006 serial blasts) felt."

Damayanti, who supports herself by sewing borders onto saris (Rs 10 per border) and on Harish's meagre compensation, recalls how she would often urge the older ladies in the family to vote.

"They used to say, 'What is the point?' And I used to say 'We must go and vote.' Now I don't see what the point is. There is no use. I don't feel like going out and voting."