What memories will six-year-old Rayane Amarsy have of his parents, Loumia and Mourad, when he grows up? Will he remember the birthday party they threw him two weeks before they lost their lives? Will he remember his father’s beaming face when the other parents complimented him for being the best football player in his age group? Will he remember his mother’s taking half an hour to bandage a wound on his elder brother’s foot?

On November 26, Mourad and Loumia had done what countless other couples have done before – leave the kids home with granny and go out for the evening. They first went to an art exhibition. Then, on the way back home to suburban Bandra, they decided to grab dinner at Tiffin restaurant at the Oberoi hotel. Fifteen minutes after they entered the restaurant, the mayhem began. I don’t know if they realised it was a terror attack. Maybe they thought the tat-tat-tat sound of machine guns was that of firecrackers. I don’t know if they tried to escape through the kitchen. Did they know that they were being sprayed by bullets in the name of God? Perhaps their last thoughts were of their children Naeem, Ilana and Rayane.
My wife, Roopa, and I first met Loumia and Mourad a few days after we arrived in Mumbai from San Francisco. They had moved from Paris a week earlier. We lived in the same building. We discovered that our children went to the same school. Rayane and our older son, Aroon, became close friends despite the language barrier. Their children spoke only French then.
Every morning, Mourad picked up Aroon a little after seven and took him to school with his kids. Every Saturday, I hung out with him as our sons played football. Sometimes we went out for dinner or met in the building with the other neighbours. The dinners were usually after nine, as Mourad and Loumia helped their kids with homework in the evening. We teamed up to produce a documentary film on Iranian cafes in Mumbai, although the project didn’t work out.

Mourad often said that he wanted to do new things and meet interesting people. Loumia was a little more direct – once she said that she hadn’t come here to “drink amla juice and eat non-fat dahi”. She was making a music album with Joi, my brother-in-law, a musician. Since the tragedy, I sometimes catch myself humming her first song What does it take you to love me? Whenever she struggled during practice, Mourad would wink and say, “Loumia, just think of me when you’re singing it.”
A few weeks after we moved to Mumbai, my younger son fell ill. I called Mourad for his pediatrician’s number. He said he’d get back to me in a minute. I expected him to call me back with the number. But, a couple of minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Mourad. He called the doctor and stayed with us until he arrived. The last time we had dinner together in early November, Mourad talked about the importance of lifelong friendships. He said he wanted his kids to know that friendship was not a series of transactional interactions, but about caring and staying in touch in the long haul.

Mourad and Loumia’s ancestors were Gujarati traders from Porbandar who left India for Africa some 130 years ago. They got married in Paris where they had both studied. Loumia founded a lingerie company called Princesse Tam Tam and Mourad joined her to run the business. They grew it from zero to $150 million in revenue and sold it to a bigger Japanese company. They were at a crossroads and were debating what to do next. That’s when they decided to come to India to discover their roots.
Like many other expatriates, at first they found it a little hard to settle down in India. However, Mumbai grew on them, like it does on so many other people. They had gone back to Paris permanently after a year, but decided to return because they missed Mumbai, the children loved it, and they wanted the kids to continue to improve their English. Things had started to work out for them. Mourad found a good business partner in Sanjay and launched a couple of ventures. Loumia had her coming-out party with the fashion community at the French consulate a week before the tragedy. Mumbai was now their home.

Several hundred people came to the funeral in Paris. The French president and the foreign minister also attended. It was a cold, gray, rainy evening in Paris when their bodies were buried. Hundreds of people – whose lives had been touched by Loumia and Mourad – stood in line to offer their condolences to the family members. When I met the kids at dinner at granny’s place that night, Rayane told me about the football match between Arsenal and Chelsea the previous day. Ilana, nine years of age, was a little reserved and playing with her cousins. Naeem, the twelve-year-old, was the responsible big brother, making sure that Rayane took a quick break from the video game to say goodbye to me.
I remember very few things from my early childhood. They are fond memories like watching Haathi Mera Saathi with my mother and Assam Police play Mohemmedan Sporting with my father. Mourad and Loumia did many such things with their kids. I hope Rayane will remember and cherish some of those memories.

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