Mahendra Pitale’s magic fingers could create idols out of mud. His skill had earned him enough to run the family. But a blast in a train at Mumbai’s Jogeshwari station in 2006 changed everything.
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Pitale lost his left hand—and his zeal to live. “I held onto my crushed arm till I reached the hospital. When the doctor said it could not be restored, I was shattered,” he said. For months Pitale was in depression, as he lost his job in a glass sculpting and interior design firm. And he did not speak at all for two years. Then he came to his senses. “I had to fight as I was alive and fortunate to have lost just one hand while several others were more seriously injured,” he said. “The biggest relief came when I met people from a prosthetics manufacturing company who showed me videos of similar people.”
He went back to his profession, this time with the help of computers, but was paid lower than he used to be. Determined not to fall into the pit of depression again, he joined a group of Royal Enfield Bullet riders and started doing cross-country tours, spreading awareness about organ donation and cancer. “In order to make disabled people feel that we are like normal people, I started participating in rock climbing,” he said. “The happiest day of my life was when I made a wheelchair-bound guy do rock climbing with the support of some disabled persons.”
Also read: The blast was a kind of rebirth for me
Pitale, 44, got a job in the Railways after doing a lot of running around. The Railways had offered employment to all those who were injured in the blast. He now works at Mumbai Central. But he has not forgotten his old profession—he undertakes glass designing assignments.
More importantly, he finds time to counsel those impaired by accident or disease. “I go to such traumatised people and tell them my life story,” he said. “I tell them to have faith and there is something better in store for them.”
