‘Mera phool gir gaya’ became ‘pul gir gaya’
"Mera phool gir gaya" (My flowers fell)! These were the harmless words uttered by a man carrying a flower basket on the Elphinstone overbridge that became a sinister "Pul gir gaya" (the bridge has collapsed) in the echo chamber of the commuters that led to a horrific stampede which claimed the lives of at least 22 people.
These details were shared by 19-year-old Shilpa Vishwakarma, who is a survivor of the tragedy.
Vishwakarma had left home to reach Elphinstone road station and was heading to Vile Parle to attend her engineering classes. "The station is hardly ten minutes away from my residence. I had left home at 9:55 am; it suddenly started raining and commuters rushed to take cover at under the bridge. A huge crowd had gathered by the time I reached the exit point," said Vishwakarma.
She, too, waited near the bridge for the crowd to disperse. "After a few minutes, the crowd began to disperse and I started climbing the bridge. I had reached halfway when the crowd started swelling yet again and I saw at least four men carrying sacks containing flowers," added Vishwakarma.
Suddenly, one of the men carrying the flower sack tripped on the wet stairs and then everybody around him was falling head over heels like a pack of cards.
"People who had misheard the words of the flower seller began to panic and jostled with others to reach the top of the overbridge. At least four people were hovering over me and I was desperately trying to catch up with my breath," said Vishwakarma.
Her eyes filled with tears as she recounted the incident. "I fell flat on my stomach and was lying on top of a woman. There were another four lying on the heap that was us.