Makwana was saved by timely treatment in Limbdi and Ahmedabad. But Gallabhai Maganbhai, 45, who was similarly unemployed and threw himself in front of a train on December 4 couldn't be saved.

Several others like them -- all jobless after the closure of the Saurashtra Co-operative Spinning Mills -- are similarly depressed. It was around a month back that the 800 workers of the mill were told that production was being wound up. Recession, and the ills plaguing the co-operative sector in the state, have taken their toll.

``What could I have done?'' asks Makwana about his suicide. ``Without a job I didn't know how I would take care of my aged parents, wife, six daughters, and son. God knows what went into my head that I took pesticide!''

Rs 1,000 was all the mill paid him, but he scraped along with that. Jobless, and with no hope of getting another job in these depressed times, he has a bigger burden: a Rs 15,000 debt.

The worries of his cousin Premjibhai Nayanbhai Makwana, who also worked at the mill, are no different. Jobless. A widowed mother, wife, seven children, and a handicapped brother to take care of. Today he works as a coolie at the bus station.

Gorabhai Makwana's mother says they have two meals a day only when her son gets work cutting fodder for farmers' cattle. ``He then brings home Rs 30 but we manage to eat something.''

Committing suicide to be rid of debts is the talk doing the rounds in the Harijan circles of the locality.

Another unemployed person, Mohanbhai Chaganbhai, who had served at the mill for more than 37 years disclosed,``There is not a single mill workers' family that is not under debt. During the first month of unemployment they could borrow, but now nobody is willing to lend!''

And affluent people of other communities are not willing to employ Harijans.

Talking about his plight he added,`` I have managed to educate my two sons -- one of them is doing LLB and another his masters -- but now that I am unemployed, I wonder what will happen to them?''

The only hope for these people -- most of whom are educated up to matriculation -- is the district and the state administration which they believe can restart the mill. The employees on their part gave a memorandum to the sub-divisional magistrate some days back and had again gone to meet the authorities at Surendranagar on Monday.

An autorickshaw driver, Bharatbhai, who is now bearing the burden of the families of his four unemployed brothers, related,``The mill has been closed on paper for the last seven months. Things had been becoming from bad to worse and last month a managerial employee had even been stabbed.''

He further stated that ,``Nobody was functioning in a responsible manner and this was bound to happen. The workers are realising their folly now.''

The mill meanwhile stands as a haunted structure.Nobody from the management was available for comments.