The smallest coffins are the heaviest

The book is a tribute to the never-say-die human spirit after the 1997 Uphaar tragedy.
Uphaar Cinema. | Youtube
Uphaar Cinema. | Youtube

What is the heaviest weight a person can carry?’ Standing near a pond, Yaksh demands of Yudhishthira in the Mahabharat before allowing him a sip of water. His four brothers lie unconscious on the shore. Pausing, but only for a moment, Yudhishthira’s answer sums it all up: ‘Carrying your own child on your shoulders for cremation!’

The fire tragedy
at Uphaar Cinema, Delhi

It was the same weight that Neelam and Krishnamoothy bore with courage and dignity, after the conflagration on June 13, 1997, in the Uphaar Cinema in Delhi. Deciding to fight the good fight and not to yield, they battle on for justice, which turns into a tribute to their children. Unnati, 17, and Ujjwal, 13, had perished while trapped in the balcony from which there was no escape. Later, the toll reached 57 and 103 others were injured.

Widow, widower and orphan are words in our lexicon that easily describe those who have lost a loved one.


If you look around, you will find it hard to discover a word to sum up the grief of parents who have to deal with the loss of their doting children. There are no escape doors in life. Perhaps you could call them relicts or those who are left behind.

But they fight back in a Sisyphus-like struggle against those responsible for this ghastly tragedy. In the tortuous labyrinth of our legal system, where on occasions they find themselves on a slippery slope, coming back many a time to the beginning.
For 19 years, the case drags on, reminding one of the wag’s saying: ‘In India the law is like a sugar-cane press.

Once you go in one end, you can only come out at the other with all the juice squeezed out!’The book stands as a tribute to the human spirit of never-say-die. As Hemingway said: ‘Man is not born for defeat. Man may be destroyed, but never defeated.’

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