Barely six hours after they wished each other for the New Year, friends gathered at Nitesh’s residence could barely believe that he was no more. Kapil Rathore (20) remembered Nitesh as a quiet person who hardly got angry at anyone.

“Nitish was a very sober guy. I never heard him being loud at anyone in the college or even cracking a nasty joke at any student. He doesn’t drink or smoke,” Rathore said.

For friends, Nitesh, the only son of the business family from Grant Road, was the boy who “danced like a dream”. A talented dancer, Nitesh had enrolled for Shiamak Dawar’s dance classes at Nanachowk. “He did not limit his dancing for family functions but won several awards for it,” Rathore recalled.

“Nitish recently won the best dancer award in a competition held by the Dawar classes to send students abroad for dance competitions. I lost it but he won it,” said friend Deepak Jain.

Pointing to the terrace where everyone had gathered to offer their condolences to the bereaved families, a neighbour said: “This is the same terrace where all these kids played cricket. They all were cricket buffs.”

Somil Gaddha (17) was the bright young cricketer of the Girdhari Bhavan in Girgaum. As the family, friends and neighbours poured in to offer their condolences, his homemaker mother and cloth trader father could hardly control themselves over the loss of their youngest child.

“I used to play cricket with him,” said Sanket, a neighbour.