Pune:
For four days, he fought the deep burns and injuries.
He fought, even after both his legs - a footballer's legs - had to be amputated on Monday. But the trauma grew and became too much to bear; eventually, 21-year-old Aditya Mehta succumbed.
Aditya, from Delhi, had enrolled at Pune's Bharatiya Vidyapeeth for their electronics engineering course four years ago. On Saturday, Valentine's Day eve, his girlfriend Aditi Jindal and he were at German Bakery. They were to join some friends later, but that was not to be.
Aditi was conscious when she was rushed to hospital after the blast. She told her friends that both Aditya and she were engulfed in flames. For 20 long traumatic seconds, they desperately tried to douse them, but by then, they were severely burnt.
At his sprawling university campus, there's a pall of gloom. Says Dr Anand Bhalerao, the principal at Aditya's college: "An innocent boy has lost his life. He was a good student; he played the guitar. In three months he would have been a graduate engineer."
A goal cut short by fate.