``But my greatest pain is, I'm unable to look into the eyes of my wife and two daughters,'' says Dave, dabbing his left eye with a kerchief. But this voracious reader is also saddened that his reading habit has suffered greatly. The biography of Edwina Mountbatten lies before him. But he can't read the book for more than an hour at a stretch. ``It puts tremendous strain on my right eye.'' The incident has put a comma if not a full stop to his career as a journalist, Dave says.

The irony ofhaving undergone what he had written about is not lost on him. Dave philosophises, about the culprit, with an almost saint-like air. He has already forgiven the stone thrower: ``I will be quite satisfied if he repents for causing so much agony to a total stranger.'' Colleagues narrate how Dave had requested police not to round up and harass suspects while investigating his accident.

Eye surgeons delivered the numbing verdict hours after the operation. Dave could never use his left eye again. But they also inspired him with example of the Nawab of Pataudi, who after losing his eye went on to captain the Indian team. Dave is to get his glass eye in a month's time and has accepted the reality of looking at the world with just one eye.

Dave feels welding wire meshes on train windows is not a permanent solution, and slum rehabilitation is likely to take years. ``Creating awareness among people about consequences of stone-throwing is the only solution.''

Narottam Patil cries with just one eye. The tears rollout of his dark glasses and down his right cheek. This commuter lost his left eye on March 8 after a stone hurled at him near Mira Road turned his eye into a bleeding pulpy mess.

Lying flat on a bed in his Virar flat this clerk at the Batco Cargo Movers in Byculla bitterly recounts how a tiny lemon-sized stone has forever changed the meaning of life for him.

``My life has turned to stone,'' he says with an emotion-choked voice. Patil was your regular nine-to-five employee, boarding the 9.05 Virar fast and returning by the Valsad Express.

Though he's 44 years old, he looks a decade younger. A body honed by years of jogging at 5 am and a dietary regimen and Sunday cricket sessions, as he reveals.

All that has changed since the accident. Confined to his bed, Patil has little sleep and spends the rest of his time shuttling between doctors. The railways have yet to give him a first-class pass to enable him to travel comfortably to doctors.

This cricket-loving health freak has been turned into a nervouswreck, who cringes each time the train passes the salt pans near Mira Road, from where the missile hurtled into his eye.

Two weeks ago, this father of three was also waiting for his children's exams to finish before realising a long-cherished dream -- a cable TV connection in time to watch the cricket World Cup.

That's not going to happen in a real hurry. Patil's family has been spending their precious savings on his treatment. ``What is a compensation of Rs 5,000 worth? I told the railways I could pay them 50,000 if they returned my eyesight.''

He was hurt when a railway inspector called at his residence close to midnight a few days ago, only to enquire whether he had received the compensation. ``And not whether I was feeling better,'' he adds.Installing cameras on trains is a foolish idea, he feels, as it will only record and not prevent damage to commuters. ``I feel railways should prevent people from walking on tracks by building a boundary-wall near tracks,'' he suggests.

For the future, however,cricket is the last thing on his mind. Patil is now preparing for the longest vacation in his 26-year career, which will see him return to pushing files with a glass eye. ``I may have the fullest faith in my abilities but a future employer may not. He'd rather see benefits of hiring a two-eyed person.''