The Rathis were in three of the coaches where the bombs went off. All escaped with minor injuries
The Rathis cannot believe their luck. Four members of the family were in the coaches, on three different trains, where bombs exploded on Tuesday evening. All of them survived.
Sitaram Rathi, 59, who runs a textile business at Kalbadevi, took the 5:54pm Borivli semi-fast from Churchgate. He was standing inside the first-class compartment in which the blast occurred at Mahim.
?I got trapped under the bodies and had to wait for people to help me out,? said Rathi, who still can’t hear properly as his eardrums were damaged.
Rathi was admitted to Hinduja hospital, from where he called his wife Varsha.
Rathi’s eldest son Prashant, 28, a chartered accountant, boarded the 6:04pm Borivli slow at Lower Parel. ?I found a place to sit, said my prayers, and fell asleep. A piercing sound woke me up at Khar station. A bomb had exploded inside my compartment,? said Prashant, an ISKCON member. ?I felt dizzy. All around me were dead people and people whose limbs were blown off,? he said, shuddering at the recollection.
Prashant sustained injuries on his back. ?I was asleep and so was bent forward.?
?Had I been awake and sitting upright, the injuries could have been severe,? said Prashant. Prashant’s siblings Leena, 24, and Satish, 21, had boarded the 5:50pm Borivli fast at Churchgate.
?The bomb in our coach went off at Bandra. We immediately called up our mother and told her that we were safe,? said Leena, who works with Hindustan Lever. The Rathis are a deeply religious family. They say it is God’s will that they survived. ?It was Lord Krishna who came to our rescue,? said Prashant.
