Periyasamy, a resident of Ammapettai village in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu, was inconsolable on Sunday as he came to collect the charred remains of his 23-year-old son, Aathikesavan, who was killed in the cracker godown fire accident at Attibele across the border near Bengaluru on Saturday. “We had big dreams. He dreamt of continuing his education which we couldn’t afford. So he had come here to work and earn some money to pay college fees. But now, both his and my dreams are shattered,” he told The Hindu.
This is not an isolated case. Of the 14 killed in the fire accident, most were in their late teens or early twenties, studying or just completed their undergraduate courses and were working at the firecracker godown-cum-store to make some money to support either their education or their poor struggling-to-meet-the-ends families. The very fact that even graduates were doing menial jobs of loading and unloading and packaging crackers, is probably an indication of their family’s financial troubles.
Vediyappan, the father of another victim, Sachin, 22, shared that his son had recently earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and had started working here just one week before the tragedy occurred. “He had a dream of becoming a police officer,” he added.
