Return of the stone age, 19-yr-old loses her eye

MUMBAI, JUNE 15: Till Monday evening, Archana Jadhav was your everyday nineteen-year-old college kid. Talented and extroverted, with a pa...

MUMBAI, JUNE 15: Till Monday evening, Archana Jadhav was your everyday nineteen-year-old college kid. Talented and extroverted, with a passion for dance and photography. Tuesday evening, she sits on a bed in ward 26 of JJ Hospital, a huge bandage over her left eye and spots of dried blood on her swollen cheek. Her right eye is closed as well and she swings her left hand helplessly through the space in front of her, asking her aunt to prop her up on pillows.

At around 8.30 pm on Monday evening, a stone arcing through the air from the hutments near Dombivli station smashed into her left eye socket, leaving her a bleeding and simpering mess, writhing on the floor. On the way home from her summer photography classes in Thane, this second-year history student of Pendharkar College was standing near the footboard to alight at the station when the missile hit her.

Soni Thomas, Narrottam Patil, Ramesh Dave. Archana has just joined a list of commuters who’ve contributed an eye to the missiles that continue to maimcommuters each year.

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Archana was transferred to the JJ Hospital at midnight from the clinic near her home in Dombivli. She was operated upon this morning. The doctor pronounced the same verdict that each of the three victims before her had heard. Her eye had lost too much fluid and couldn’t be saved.

A few months ago, she was on cloud nine. She had organised a dance programme telecast on a satellite TV channel. Today, her grieving family that crowds around her bed doesn’t recognise this shattered nervous wreck. Her mother Kanta Jadhav bites her lip to hold back the tears. “We haven’t told her anything yet,” says her cousin Sushil Sakpal, grimly.

But she knows anyway. “I’ve only lost my eye, I can continue with life, but what about Jaybala who lost both her legs. Is money always a substitute?”

The questions continue. “Why don’t they evict hutment-dwellers from the railway tracks?” she asks in a cracked emotion-choked voice. She plans to put this question to Union Minister of State for RailwaysRam Naik, who will be visiting her on Wednesday.

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If there’s anything that’s been affected more by this tragedy, it’s her interest in photography. Four years ago, when she passed her SSC, her uncle gifted her a small camera that kindled her interest in photography. She spent many summers taking pictures of rural life in her village Kotwal in Raigad district. She hopes to be able to continue with her hobby despite the loss.