A little distance away from the board I saw an old Bori man sitting by himself, unconscious of the tears that streamed relentlessly down his cragged face. He had obviously scanned that white writing on black; he had got the news - and he knew not how to deal with it, what he could do but mourn. He sat there, an island of grief in a city overwhelmed by grief, individual and collective.
The terrorist attack was agnostic -- it had spared no age, no sex, no race, no religion. No nationality either, as we discovered when, at JJ Hospital a few kilometers away, we encountered two shell-shocked foreigners searching for members from a party of eight that had been scattered.
We gathered that the two - a British man and a European girl - had been on the way to meet their friends at Leopold's Cafe when the gunfire broke out. Hospital staff helped them search the massive list of victims at JJ; ultimately it was in vain.
Their dilemma was shared by thousands of others seeking news: is no news good news? If your loved one's name is not on a list, is that a guarantee that he or she is alive? Or does it merely mean that the person with the chalk hasn't gotten down to it yet?
There were 127 victims in the hospital, said Casualty Medical Officer Dr Gawai with exemplary exactitude. In addition to the many victims poring in from around the city, the last of whom had arrived at about 12:30 pm IST, 16 dead bodies had been brought directly to the hospital, including some from the Taj Mahal Hotel.
In this photo: A foreigner awaits news on her missing friends, feared injured or killed at Leopold's Cafe, at JJ Hospital
Photograph: Reuben N V
Also read: 'They kept firing at everyone'
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