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LIVING: UPHAAR
Remains
Of The Day
Four
years after the Uphaar tragedy a journey through the mindscape of some
who continue to live with the loss and memory
By
Sonia Faleiro
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?
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HALL OF HORROR: The theatre has remained
shut since June 13, 1997
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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?
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"We won't
die before receiving justice."
NEELAM AND SHEKHAR KRISHNAMOORTHY
Except for the bedcovers, the couple haven't
changed anything in the bedroom where their children Unnati, 16,
and Ujjwal,13, once slept. In May 1998 Shekhar, a professional singer,
released Rukhsat, an album dedicated to them.
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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.
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"By god's
grace I will have more children."
JAGDEEP MANN
Mann lost his wife Mallika and children
Medini, Tarini and Dhruv. Seen here with his second wife Illika
and dog Bozo, he says he would have "perished" without
a companion. His shrine to his family, a tuberculosis clinic built
in May 1999, has cured 60 patients.
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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.
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