Ashok Shinde sits just where he did that fateful Monday. His seat is a well-smoothened rock, a few meters from the blast site, where he sells gram and jowar for the pigeons that frequent the promenade near the Gateway of India.
For 20 years Shinde has sat on that same pavement. He sits cross-legged behind two sacks of pigeon-feed, concealing his crippled leg skillfully. If one doesn't notice the crutch behind him, he could pass for one of the many men plying their trade at the Gateway.
A train accident cost him his legs when he was eight years old, and the blast on August 25 almost cost him his face.
Shinde was hit by tin debris that ripped through his cheek moments after the explosion. An ambulance took him to the GT Hospital where he says he was admitted for ten days and underwent plastic surgery.
"I did not have to pay anything for the treatment and the government gave me Rs 10,000 in the hospital," says Shinde, who was visited by Sunil Dutt, MP, in the ward and Sonia Gandhi "who went away from below."
He returned to work soon after being discharged from hospital. He says he makes between Rs 100 and Rs 200 a day, but is saddened with the sharp decline in the number of pigeons flocking to the monument.
"They took away two sacks of dead pigeons after the blast. Since then only half the pigeons seem to have returned. I hope they come back soon."