'Mumbai blast shattered my dreams'

Hiralal Kamat has lost sensation below the waist after being injured in 13/7 blast at Zaveri Bazaar.

Kamat is not sure whether he will be able to walk.
A resident of Madhubani in Bihar, the 35-year-old man was working as a cook in a small hotel in Zaveri Bazaar for 10 years.

"After the blast, I don't remember how I reached the hospital," he said.

"I came to the city with dreams. My dreams crashed in the blast and I now want to go back to my native place," said Kamat.
Kamat, who was left paraplegic because of his severe injuries, said the city is like his mother.

"I had never expected this tragedy to happen to me. I just want to get well and walk . Before the blast, I was earning enough to feed my family and educate to my son," said Kamat, who was sole bread winner in his family.

The blast splinter has damaged his spinal cord and lungs. "Life seems like a burden. I often feel it was all a bad dream," he said.
Doctors have given him hope that he might walk again.

"But they do not have an answer when I will walk. Slowly I am recuperating. However, I am getting back sensation in the right leg. But I cannot move my left leg," said Kamat.

Dr Deepak Palande, head of the neurosurgery department, said it is difficult to say when Kamat would be able to walk. "We removed all shrapnel from the spine but are not able to do the MRI test because sharpnels are still lodged in the lungs."

He added that Kamat would have to undergo another surgery to remove the metal pieces from the lungs.

"I don't think Kamat will able to work," said Manoj Kamath, Hiralal's relative, who has been taking care of him after the blast. "His seven-year-old son Raju and his wife, Renuka, have not met Kamat after the blast."