SPIRITED: The staff at Jaslok Hospital say Amit Singh is a source of inspiration for other patients. PIC/ALISHA COELHO

Amit Singh (22) spends much of his time and there is a lot of that on his hands near the window at Jaslok Hospital. It offers a nice view of the world below but it's a world he watches with unseeing eyes.

"He is in a vegetative state. Amit's brain continues to show no response. He can keep his neck upright and he can yawn and blink, but we don't know if the movement is involuntary. His condition is still poor," said Dr Kuldeep Dalal, intensivist at the hospital's High Dependency Unit (HDU).

His father Dinesh Singh, said that his wife massaged Amit's feet sitting by the window and makes him listen to music on his cell phone. "He loved music and I'm sure that when he stepped into that train that awful day, he was listening to music," says Singh, who stays in Virar.

Amit doesn't know he is a Bcom graduate, as his results were announced after the incident.

Now, nearly two years on, his parents live on hope, especially after another 7/11 victim, in a similar state, is on his way to recovery (see story alongside). "Hope is all we have. I only met Parag's relatives briefly when L K Advani visited them last year, but if their prayers could come true, so can ours," says Dinesh.

Staff at the hospital say Amit is spirited and he is a source of inspiration for other patients. "They see this young boy and his will to live and are pushed to do the same," said Anagha Ghadi, head nurse at the HDU where Amit is the youngest patient.

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