Driving home from work always takes forever in Mumbai holiday-weekend traffic, so Kunal Shah took the train -- 45 minutes instead of two hours from one part of town to the other, from Dadar to Goregaon. In Dadar he worked for an Indian publishing house that produced colorful magazines about fashion, lifestyle, and Bollywood stars. The 23-year-old lived in Goregaon, an outlying neighbourhood, with his parents and younger brother.

Kunal became one of the nearly 200 victims of the terror attacks last Tuesday. At 6:25 p.m., a bomb exploded in his train in the Matunga neighborhood. Now the name of Kunal Shah has become known across the city because, just before he died, the young man gave up his seat to a woman. She survived the explosion uninjured. Kunal's politeness had cost him his life.

That, at least, is the story the woman told Kunal's family. Even though she knew he was dead, she stayed by the young man's side after the explosion. She accompanied him to the hospital and stayed until relatives came to indentify the body. She told them she owed her life to him. The doctors could only confirm Kunal's death; and the woman quickly disappeared. "She'd suffered a lot," said an aunt of Kunal's.

Several Indian papers and at least one TV news team have reported the story. A South African as well as a British broadcaster have called the Shah family home for an interview. Kunal, in death, is becoming world-famous.

A family in mourning

A number of women sit in the Shah family living room: Kunal's mother Shilpa, aunts, great-aunts, cousins. They all wear white saris, since white is the color of mourning in India. The women hold handkerchiefs, talk in muted voices; some weep. The phone rings. It's Kunal's aunt in America. Shilpa tells her the latest news about arrests, and the suspicion that the Muslim terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba is to blame for Kunal's death . A few men come out of another room, where they have been discussing the situation among themselves. It's hot -- over 95 degrees -- and monsoon rains are flooding the streets again. Motorcycle rickshaws rattle outside. Taxis honk, and street voices rise to the fourth-floor apartment. A fan on the ceiling stirs the hot and humid air.

Rajnikant B. Shah, Kunal's father, looks after the guests. He supplies glasses of water and asks if anyone is hungry. His eyes are tear-reddened but he seems collected. "It's unbelievable, how he keeps this family grounded," says Vineet Raut, 23, a colleague and friend of Kunal's.

Rajnikant was the last to learn about Kunal's death. He was traveling in northern India when he first heard about the bombings. He called home, and his wife asked him to come home as soon as possible -- Kunal was "seriously injured." In fact, he had long been dead, but the family didn't want to tell Rajnikant that on the phone. He booked a ticket that evening for New Delhi and flew to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, the next morning. When he walked into the apartment, just after 8 a.m., Kunal's body was already lying there in state.

A large photo of Kunal now stands in the corner of the living room next to a picture of his grandfather. "He was a fine young man," said Rajnikant. "Always optimistic, cultivated, truly a good son. He just finished studying business management five months ago." Rajnikant excuses himself and goes to the balcony. After a few minutes he returns. He's been crying, but doesn't want to do so in front of visitors. His face is wet. "It's still raining," he says, then laughs at his own excuse.

Harshit, Kunal's little brother, flips through one of the fashion magazines Kunal had worked for. He dog-ears a few pages to mark his brother's writing. Kunal was a trainee in the advertising and marketing department but wrote short articles now and then. These have become valuable remembrances for the family.

The Shahs originally come from the state of Gujarat in northwestern India. They're devotees of Jainism, an offshoot Hinduism and a minority religion in India. Do they hate the Muslims now suspected of setting off the series of bombs?

"Hate, no, I don't feel hate," says Rajnikant. His wife Shilpa says nothing, only gives a slight nod of her head. "We can't blame the Muslims; we don't want a religious quarrel," says Rajnikant. "Only the terrorists are guilty. They kill innocent people. In any case I'm convinced that the government isn't doing it's job. They haven't done enough about the terrorism problem. The security forces simply have to be more observant. But I am surprised about one thing," he says, "that Kunal's mobile phone was stolen. It must have been lying on the train platform."