Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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| Bob Marley |
A wave of enjoyment spread in people after the fact that Rob Ford officially declared today Bob Marley Day, and admittedly it is kind of funny. This is a guy who is now known internationally for his reggae dance moves (see above) and his oddly perfect command of Jamaican patois, so the Marley connection is all too appropriate. What most don’t realize, though, is that Ford has declared Bob Marley Day during every year of his mayoralty. In fact, the citywide observance predates him: Mel Lastman and David Miller both proclaimed Bob Marley Day on an annual basis.
So, as funny as it is to suppose that a daylong tribute to Bob Marley is just Ford’s personal preference, that’s not really the case. In fact, the city has dozens of these almost-holidays every year. Most of them are requested by different community organizations and then rubber-stamped by the mayor’s office as a matter of courtesy. Here are a few other special days Ford has been roped into declaring over the course of his mayoralty.
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