If he hadn't stepped out of his taxi for a stroll, Shiv Narayan Pande would have been blown to bits.

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The cabbie who survived Monday's bomb blast at the Gateway of India is a "simple, hardworking man", his friends Akhilesh Mishra and Gyanendra Pande say.

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The duo --�fellow cabbies at the Khar West taxi stand --�said Pande would not have been in the taxi under normal circumstances. He only drove it on Sundays; the other six days he was driver to a private vehicle.

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But on August 24, Sunday, Gyanendra said, Pande had got two 'good' passengers -- a couple who paid him well, and asked him to pick them up at Andheri on Monday.

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As he had his routine job, Pande asked a friend to pick up the couple. The friend was sick, and Pande, remembering the handsome amount the couple had paid earlier, decided to go himself.

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Pande is currently in police custody. His friends have no idea where he is, or when he will be released.

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He has two sons who are mentally retarded, his friends said. The family lives in Poisar Kandivli.

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