Author: Abhishek Sharan
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: January 3, 2005
Introduction: This is Aarti's story.
To families that lost husbands and fathers to the closure of sick mills,
it is a sign of brave survival
Over three years ago. Aarti and
her mother Kalpana found Arun Mane (48), the man of the house, sliced in
two on a railway track.
Mane was a store-keeper with the
century-old Swadeshi Mills. Aarti thinks she really lost her dad after
he heard that the place where he made his livelihood, now a sick mill,
was about to close.
Officially, he went missing from
the morning of January 18, 2001.
Today, Aarti (16) stays at her uncle's
Chunabhatti chawl near Sion, in a window-less 10ft by 10-ft room.
The family believe that Arun, tormented
by financial worries, committed suicide. This week, Newsline revisited
the Manes-there's also Dheeraj (14) and Yash (10).
Aarti, frail and bespectacled, is
a Standard X student in a private neighbourhood school. She is a bundle
of energy, until mention of her father.
Memories flood back, to haunt and
sting.
Papa wanted her to "excel in studies",
says Aarti. "I am trying my best to do exactly that."
That's her cord with her doting
father. She was once ordinary in her studies, but not this year.
"If she is not in her school, or
at her tuition classes, it means she is studying." says a proud Kalpana
(35).
When the Manes steep, she studies
outside the family's only room, in the kitchen.
The efforts are yielding results-
a score of 94 per cent in English, 96 per cent in Science. "I got 90 per
cent in my last exam," Aarti whispers, after coaxing.
For the SSC, she aims for over 90
per cent. The closure of the mill rendered the families of its 2,800 workers
jobless and hungry. Apart from Arun, nine other workers had then committed
suicide.
Last year, an inferno on February
28 gutted part of Swadeshi Mills. Responding to a Newsline series highlighting
the workers' plight, readers sent in contributions. The management-Forbes
Group, part of the construction giant Shapoorji Pallonjee-paid compensation.
Newsline has pledged Rs 1 lakh to
Arun's family, who don't have their own house or a regular source of income.
