He sat there, all crumpled, holding onto an unopened water bottle that was handed over to him by some volunteers. A grief-stricken Balakrishnan sat like that on the bench, sometime from morning to late afternoon, ocassionally shifting seats. He was the younger brother of Suresh, a 50-year-old worker who had been missing since the devastating Mundathikode fireworks blast in Kerala’s Thrissur district.

Other friends of Suresh gathered around and waited along with Mr. Balakrishnan outside the mortuary of the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur.