Bilal Ahmad Masood, who was fondly called “Kashmiri” by locals in Chandni Chowk’s cycle market, was a 32-year-old cart operator who had made Delhi home for the last 16 years.
According to The Indian Express, he moved to the Capital as a teenager from Ganderbal in Jammu & Kashmir and worked hard to eke out a living by loading and unloading goods and ferrying them on his battery-operated cart. "Kashmiri yahaan apni rickshaw lagaata tha (Kashmiri used to park his rickshaw here)", his friend, 45 years old, Shiv Singh Nagar, told the Indian Express.
Unmarried and living alone, Bilal used to sleep in his cart parked under a tree at an inconspicuous corner, which now lies empty after his death. All his belongings fit into a single bag, friends told the newspaper.
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Shiv said, "I called him (Bilal) around 6.50 that evening to ask where he was. I had sent him to deliver some goods at Kashmere Gate. He said he was at the Red Fort traffic signal. And then I heard the explosion, and the ground trembled."
The blast that took his life
His cart was one of the several vehicles destroyed in the explosion outside Red Fort on Monday evening that killed 10 people and injured 30. According to The Indian Express, Shiv said Bilal called him at 7:01 pm, soon after the blast to say that he was injured. "He said that he was injured and that they were taking him to the hospital. That was our last conversation," he added.
Shiv and others rushed to the hospital’s Emergency ward twice but were unable to meet him. He said, "Hum hospital ke Emergency mein bhi do baar gaye, par usse milne nahi diya. Zindagi bhar laga rahega ki kaash usko ek baar dekh liya hota. (We went to the hospital’s Emergency ward twice but could not meet him. We will always feel the regret of not being able to see him before he died)."
He further added, "Hum phele maane hi nahin, humne kaha koi aur Bilal hoga. (We did not believe them, we thought it must be some other Bilal)."
A man of friendship and routine
As per the report by The India Express, Market regulars described Bilal as reliable, jovial, trusted and deeply attached to the people he worked with. "He once also brought ghee and pickles. All this is fresh from Kashmir, he would say,” Shiv said. “He would call his family at night, speak to them on video call. They would ask him to come back to Kashmir, but he would say that he liked staying here."
His family had been urging him to attend a wedding at his sister’s house, but he was undecided. Shiv added, "He was working in Raipur for a few months to earn some extra money, and he came back to Delhi before Diwali. I told him to go, and that I would lend him some money if he needed it. But before he could make up his mind, this happened,”
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A final memory
Fellow cart operator Lala Ram recalled a light-hearted exchange they had only hours before the explosion in which Bilal teased him to retire because he had grown older. "He called out to me from far away and teased me, ‘buzurg aadmi ho, ab toh kaam chhod do’. (You’re an elderly man now, you should stop working.) I could never have imagined that would be the last time I would see him."
