Author: Radha Sharma
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 1, 2008
His heart-rending wail will be heard no more.
Rohan Vyas (12) is dead. The hopes of his family now hang precariously on
his younger brother Yash (9), who misses Rohan on the bed alongside him but
is unaware that he died on Thursday.
The Vyas family witnessed Rohan taking his
last gasps of breath minutes after they returned from the 'besna' (death ceremony)
of the boys' father Dushyant Vyas. Dushyant, an employee of the cancer department
at Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital, and his sons were badly burnt in the powerful
blast that ripped through the hospital's trauma centre on Saturday.
Doctors were seen consoling the heartbroken
Vyas family, saying they were making their best efforts to save little Yash.
Dushyant had bought a secondhand bicycle for his sons on Saturday and the
boys were taking their first riding lessons in the hospital compound when
the car bomb went off.
With 70% burns, Rohan had been put on a ventilator
as he could not breathe on his own. Soon his condition deteriorated and he
succumbed.
With her husband and elder son dead, a stunned
Geetaben could not take her eyes off her younger child Yash, who suffered
50% burns, on Thursday. He slept after his lunch of dal and rice but not before
inquiring about Rohan. His uncle Dharmesh, not having the heart to relay the
grim news, lied to him, saying that Rohan would return soon.