the lost memoirs.......

Found a very touching article in Sonia Falerio's blog:

Here are some excerpts from the blog:

Four years after the Uphaar tragedy a journey through the mindscape of some who continue to live with the loss and memory.

He doesn't look like a victim. He's not pale, emaciated or physically scarred. True, his eyes are dull and below them hang pouchy blue-black crescents. But you would expect Jagdeep Mann, the owner of a home with a drawing room filled with crystal, the employer of a servant silently transferring sandwiches and soup into china plates and the driver of a Daewoo Matiz, to look tired. Success does that to some men. Mann himself looks like he enjoys the good life. Strangers would be envious. What do they know?
On June 13, 1997, Mann's wife and children went to Uphaar Grand, a movie theatre in Delhi's Green Park area that promised the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. screening of the film Border would be a memorable experience. It was. A transformer on the ground floor of the complex leaked oil; the oil burnt, sending noxious fumes, first tentatively, then increasingly thickening and speeding into the theatre. The movie continued. Were they watching a song sequence? Sandese aate hain perhaps, a popular tune people still hum when melancholic. Were they watching heartthrob Akshaye Khanna die on the battlefield? How long after did they realise that it was their turn to die?
It has been four years since that horrifying pantomime of smoke and crush and confusion asphyxiated 59 people and injured 104 others. Today, it's not just the broken windows of Uphaar that remain shattered. "One day I had the perfect life," says Mann. "The next day I had nothing." His parents, afraid that the utter loneliness would drive their son over the edge, moved in with him. In 1998, Mann brought out the checklist he'd made while first searching for a life partner. Illika is homely, he says. Just like Mallika was. And when they were in second grade the two had been neighbours sharing a grubby wooden bench. "It's ironic," says Mann, trying to smile. He can't. The fact strikes him as eerie. When memories of his "brilliant daughters" and the son who read Charles Dickens at the age of six become too harsh to bear, Mann pays a visit to Modern School, Humayun Road. There, four lush trees grow side by side, their branches swaying in the wind. The trees have names: Mallika, Medini, Tarini and Dhruv.
Like Mann, Durga Das, 35, is a stocky man. Rivulets of sweat are flowing down his face and his thick blue shirt is clinging uncomfortably to him. Each day since May 23, the day the recording of evidence in the Uphaar case commenced, Das has travelled an hour to reach the Delhi High Court. He then sits in the last row of court No 12 watching proceedings conducted in a language he doesn't understand. He does this to get justice for his 18-year-old son Ravi whose pride in buying a "ticket that was too expensive for people like us" resulted in a tragic, irreparable fall. The years since witnessed tangible changes in the life of the man who presses clothes for a living. The "evil eye" that caused Ravi's demise vanished, he says, after he rented a new flat with the Rs 1-lakh compensation given to him by the central government. On July 28, 1997, the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) sued for punitive damages worth Rs 120 crore for the kin of those who perished. With the money, they pledge to start a Central Accident Trauma centre. With his share Das would like to buy a house. "Just because one person dies doesn't mean life has to end for everyone else," he says, shrugging his shoulders defensively.
Das says Vikas Kumar reminds him of his son. Skinny and bright. Before he lost his father, Kishen Lal, Kumar had wanted "to be someone". He is, of course, the studious boy who reluctantly metamorphosed into a brave man. The boss of a store whose shelves are stacked with dusty crockery and bandaged jugs and bowls of twine and brushes. Supplying wedding material is seasonal work that throws up about 16 assignments over eight months. The rest of the year Kumar is an odd-jobs man, trawling the colony in search of paying errands. At his seat by the door, staring blankly outside, he looks very young indeed. Like he should be in a college canteen drinking a Coke, not at work; not forced to gather dowry for his sister's wedding; or sending his younger siblings off to school each morning. From where Kumar sits, looking at the crumbling road that leads out of Shakarpur it's a long way off to where he wants to be and where four years ago, he could have been.
The agonising regret is palpable elsewhere too. In an apartment in south Delhi upon entering which crippling questions slowly seep off the walls. Does a mother remain a mother even after her children are dead? How long can one nurture pain? A year, two, four? How about a lifetime? There will be no more children in Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy's home and when the couple grow old, the thought of which "sends a chill" down Neelam's spine, they will be alone. With only a room full of posters and a Hulk Hogan doll and costume jewellery and lipsticks crumbling in their dusty, cracked tubes for memories. "We wanted to commit suicide," says Neelam, staring at the wall. "But we won't. Not until we receive justice. And we will receive it because we have our children, Unnati and Ujjwal's spirit and support to guide us." It's the most painful impetus to turn crusader overnight.
A few kilometres away in South Extension, Harish Dang and his second wife Anjali are curled up on a sofa reading a newspaper. The Dangs' drawing room complements the mood of the household in a manner they couldn't have anticipated. It's blue. Blue as the sky as the seas as the shirt on Harish's back. Anjali's voice is firmer than that of her husband, just like one would imagine her grasp would be. But she's never had to be as strong as he has. When Dang lost his wife and son he had no time to grieve. His daughter Resham, then 6, survived the fire but remained unconscious for seven days. Now she keeps to herself, rarely elucidating her thoughts. Dang's second wedding in a temple in 1999 was attended only by immediate family members. What was going through the bride's mind when she stepped across the threshold of a house where death had long overstayed its visit? Where the room she would sleep in each night was dominated by the photograph of her husband's first wife. "We had substantial talks before we married," says Anjali. "I knew what to expect." She looks at her husband, "He's a nice man," she says. Dang doesn't smile. "Now Anjali puts roses on Madhu's photo," he says.
Marriage is not an option for Kanwaljeet Bhalla. There's simply too much to do. The grief cycle-denial, depression, bargaining, anger and acceptance-to live through, and her children to live for. "When my husband was alive and I needed money, all I had to do was go to him and stretch out my hand," she says miserably, staring at the bulky, yellowing fan above. "Now I have to think thrice before buying anything." But Bhalla, acting as any mother would, says she's willing to grieve on behalf of her children as well. So Bindiya, Payal, Jasjit and Mala can dream big, become anything they wish and be anyone they want. And when they feel the pinch, all they have to do is go to their mother and stretch out their arms.
On June 13, AVUT's members will gather at Smriti Upavan at Uphaar. At this tribute of flowing water on concrete bearing the names of those who died, they will perform a havan and a shanti paath. "Life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards," said Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Four years later, that's exactly what Uphaar's bereaved are trying to do."