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,...
By Dheeraj Fartode TWISTS, turmoil and triumph make a life. This life presents opportunities as well as disappointments in equal measure. While some grab their chances to achieve success, others just keep cursing the darkness. A thread of inspiration is enough for the doers to leave the disappointments behind and embrace a bright future. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Zone IV Nirmala Devi is one example of turning turmoil into triumph by working on the inspiration from her mother Laxmi, who had left studies in Standard VII. Born in Alandurai village near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu on September 22, 1982, Nirmala Devi never thought of becoming Indian Police Service (IPS) officer till completion of her graduation in B.Sc. (Computer Technology). It was her mother who guided her to clinch the top post in police department. DCP Nirmala Devi Nirmala Devi’s father Sundharam passed away when she was just one-and-a-half-year old. Her mother ably shouldered the family’s responsibil...