Nikita Parekh with her daughter’s classmates on Monday. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Tilak Parekh could not let go of his daughter Nandita’s last gift — a card she had made for his birthday on April 27 — while his wife Nikita shed silent tears, a day after a truck rammed into their car on Delhi Road (NH 2) killing the 13-year-old.

“Ruchi (Nandita) had worked so hard to design the card, just like previous years. Now who will wake me up with a kiss on my cheek and a card on my birthdays?” cried Tilak, a senior sales manager at a paint company, sitting outside his daughter’s bedroom. “I don’t have the courage to enter her room,” he said.

The second floor flat at 188/100 Prince Anwar Shah Road was packed with mourning relatives and friends on Monday. “My brother and sister-in-law haven’t eaten since Sunday. They are only crying. She was their only child,” said Tilak’s elder brother Chanchal, who flew down from Jaipur.

Tilak’s voice shook as he described the accident. “The three of us were sitting in the rear seat (of an Ambassador). I asked the driver to take a left turn, and suddenly there was a thud behind us. I lost consciousness for a few moments. When I regained my senses, I saw my wife standing in the middle of the highway, screaming. My daughter’s body was under the front wheel of a lorry, only her legs were visible.”

“I cried for help but none of the vehicles stopped. My colleagues rushed to our rescue, but my girl was already dead by then,” he said.

Nikita, who had hardly spoken since the accident, asked her daughter’s friends to come over. “I have lost my daughter. Please visit our home often,” she cried as she hugged some of them.

“She used to always rank among the top 10 in our class. She was very good at drawing, calligraphy and playing the synthesiser. On Sunday morning she asked me to plan a get-together with our friends,” said Dhvani Mehta, Nandita’s classmate at Carmel High School, Dhakuria. Nandita was the captain of Class VIII, section A.

“She was born on Children’s Day. I can’t believe she died on way to our house,” cried Gautam Jamer, Nandita’s uncle from Serampore.