Nagpur Heroes Awards: Where all 20 were winners

Nagpur: Anticipation, suspense and a bit of nervousness were palpable before the presentation of Nagpur Heroes awards on Wednesday. The venue at a city hotel was packed with achievers, some who were in the race, others who had won laurels in previous years, and a few who would be winning recognition in the near future.
At the fifth edition of TOI’s Nagpur Heroes award, the 20 nominees took their seats along with chief guests mayor Nanda Jichkar and Suresh Sharma, managing director of Baidyanath Ayurved Bhavan Pvt Ltd, who presented the awards.

Putting an end to the long drawn suspense over their identity, the three judges who picked the final heroes from among the nominations were present too. Real estate developer Ashutosh Shewalkar, adman Sanjay Arora, and life skills trainer Sapna Sharma, who comprised the jury, shared the experience they had while picking the final five.

Terming the entire process as a humbling experience, Sharma said, “This is the toughest job I have ever carried out in my life.” Admiring the work done by all the nominees, Sharma continued, “I took home the profiles of all of them to motivate my daughters.”

“The awards are a hands off event for TOI, and that makes the job of the judges that much tougher,” said Arora, adding that he wished there were some more definitive criteria for judging, “as the fields from which we had to pick up winners were too diverse.”

For Shewalkar, it was a choice between quality and superquality, “A kind of inferiority complex filled me while I was going through the profiles of each one of them.”

A quick run through the profiles of all nominees brought back the feats that have made them heroes. “Just learning about their good work is such an enriching experience,” felt the mayor, who added, “All of them should try for world records.”

Awards motivate people to strive for greater heights, said Suresh Sharma. “I appreciate this initiative by TOI of giving people their due. These winners are motivators for others. But I also hope that more young people are given recognition, as it will create a sense of responsibility in them,” he said.

The excitement was palpable as the moment to announce the winners finally arrived. The first to pick up the Nagpur Hero trophy was paediatrician Dr Vinky Rughwani, who got it under the popular choice category, for polling the highest number of votes.

A huge round of applause greeted mountaineer Avinash Deoskar, who along with his wife Bimla, was a winner for their sterling feat of training ten tribal youth from Chandrapur to scale Mt Everest. The young team of Design It Ezy earned admiration from the crowds when Ritu and her brother Prateek came on stage to receive the trophy for their extraordinary innovations.

Iqbal Kashmiri, who received the award for his yeoman service in training youth in football, felt honoured to be sharing the stage with a distinguished line up of achievers. For world record holder Vishnu Manohar, the award was special. “As this is the first time I have received any award in Nagpur,” he said. “I am so happy as I could share the stage with my heroes like Dr Samarth, Vikash Khurana and Vishal Agarwal,” Manohar told TOI later.

For Tanveer Mirza, who works in the sphere of rural and social development, it was a proud moment. “This is such a fine line up of nominees and I would say that the journey begins from here as there is so much more to accomplish. But I feel that this city still needs to explore our potential,” he said.