It's been a year, but Asha Gupta remembers the events of October 1, 2019, more clearly than perhaps what happened yesterday. Asha, who has three children—Anuj, 18, Tarun, 17, and Kusum, six—was getting her daughter ready for school. It was around 11 am. Tarun, says the homemaker, left the house to go and play. The family lives on the ground floor of a four-storeyed building on SB Singh Road, Colaba. Stepping out by himself was not unusual for Tarun, says father Vinod, 44, who runs an office stationery business at Nariman Point.

The building, says Vinod, has a compound and the main gate is a little ahead of the compound. A balloon shop on the left outside the gate, was a daily stop for Tarun. "Usko balloons ka badaa shauk tha," says Vinod. "He used to take R20 from his mother, buy balloons for R10 and give R10 to a beggar sitting near the gate."