Tragedy strikes families as kids deal with SSC exams

TNN / Mar 19, 2008, 01:18 IST

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Rama Hande, was a labourer at the aerosol unit on the third floor of the Retiwala Estate building that was engulfed in a blaze on Monday afternoon.

Tragedy strikes families as kids deal with SSC exams

MUMBAI: Clad in her blue school uniform, 11-year-old Namrata came running home looking for her mother. But seeing the crowd of women gathered outside her small room in a chawl near the Retiwala Industrial Estate, she seemed to sense that something was wrong. "Aayee kuthe aahe? (Where is my mother?)" she said as she broke down in her grandmother��s arms.
Her mother, Rama Hande, was a labourer at the aerosol unit on the third floor of the Retiwala Estate building that was engulfed in a blaze on Monday afternoon.The fire brigade managed to retrieve her charred body late in the night.
Hande��s three daughters, two of whom were to appear for their geography board exam on Tuesday, were unaware of their mother��s death until they got back from school. "We had sent the girls away to their aunt��s house so that they could prepare for the exam. Otherwise, the news would have unnerved them completely," said a relative. "We consoled them by saying that their mother was in hospital and was doing fine," she added.
Hande, like the other women labourers who died in the fire, had been the sole bread-winner of the family-comprising three daughters and a 19-year-old son-ever since her husband abandoned them eight years ago. She had been working at the aerosol gala since then. "She was an inspiring woman who was taking care of her family all by herself," said a neighbour, Yakoob Khan. "It is a big emotional loss, particularly for her daughters. She was a constant source of support for them in their educational pursuits," he added.

The story was repeated outside the intensive care unit at JJ Hospital as fervent prayers turned to loud, inconsolable wails within seconds as a Kurla family was informed that their patient Suresh Rokade had breathed his last.
Rokade, who was caught in Monday��s fire which gutted the Retiwala Industrial Estate, died of trauma injuries. "He came in with massive respiratory damage which subsequently affected his heart," said JJ Hospital dean Pravin Shingare.

"Why didn��t God take me away instead? He had a whole family to support and a child to bring up," said his aged mother Narmada sobbing uncontrollably.
Rokade, who was in his forties, worked in a chappal-making workshop on the fourth floor of the Retiwala building and was the sole breadwinner in his three-member family. His wife Tara was too disturbed to speak and his son Shashikant was appearing for an SSC paper and didn��t know about his father��s death till later.
"We didn��t tell him about Rokade being in the ICU as we hoped he would pull through. We could have never imagined that the worst was awaiting us," said relative Sanjay as he wondered aloud about what a great shock it would be for Shashikant who still had a few papers of the crucial tenth standard exam to give.
Another relative said Rokade��s boss hadn��t enquired after him and they had been desperately trying to reach him, in vain.
Family members who retraced the sequence of events with a few sentences Rokade mumbled to them earlier and tidbits that they heard from eyewitnesses said Rokade, like the others in their unit, had used a rope to slide down to the third floor but had also suffered a fall somewhere in the mayhem.
Doctors said Rokade had come in with burn injuries on his hand and trauma due to suffocation. "He came in with massive respiratory damage which subsequently affected his heart," said JJ Hospital dean Pravin Shingare. As relatives poured in on hearing the news, the grieving family huddled around each other trying to draw strength in numbers.
Though such a fire has been unprecedented in the area, residents of the locality say that small incidents of fire are very common in most of the industrial units located on the HH Pallav marg, where Retiwala industrial estate is also located. Labourers, most of whom inhabit the small chawls around these units, are always at peril and keep incurring small injuries due to faulty wiring and chemicals catching fire. "We are used to seeing small blazes. Even as a child I remember running out and looking at the small fires on the factories around," said a 28-year resident from the chawl next to Retiwala building. "As small labourers, we are always at a risk," she added.

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