MUMBAI: Grenville d’Abreo, 67, and his wife Pamela, 66, knows what the old adage ‘misfortune never comes alone’ means. The Yari Road couple from Avichal building were stranded for 12 hours in a BEST bus on 26/7, after being trailed by a series of mishaps in London and Paris.
“On July 26, we had gone to apply for new passports. Then we went to a Cuffe Parade bank to withdraw some money. We thought of taking an AC bus to Four Bungalows, but we had no idea what was in store,” says Pamela.
“It was 2.30 pm and pouring. In 12 hours the bus just reached Shivaji Park,” recalls Grenville. Pamela called up a local relative from a co-passenger’s cell. They got off the bus and waded for an hour to the relative’s place. Pamela is an asthma patient while Grenville has hypertension. “Adversity gave us unforeseen strength,” she says.
The couple’s rough ride had begun in London. On July 5, 2005, they went for a fun trip in the London tube to Edgware and King’s Cross before taking the Eurostar to Paris the next day. On July 7, there were bomb blasts in these London stations.
When they reached Paris’ Gare du Nord station, her handbag with passports, visa, Euro300 and $200 was flicked. They checked into a hotel and went to get a fresh temporary passport from Indian embassy, which wasn’t easy.
When they came back to the hotel, their other bag was missing from the hotel room. A dejected d’Abreos left Paris on July 16 only to get trapped on 26/7.
And on Wednesday-the first anniversary of 26/7-the couple were down with flu!
