Sunday, January 3, 2010

18th October 1999

Two groups of boatmen and two of our relatives set out in the search of Vijayan. Even at such a time of crisis all the people who "helped" us were mercilessly trying to extract as much as money they could. To us money was not a criterion at this time but the way in which these people thought is utterly disgusting and disgraceful. They demanded local alcohol to keep them going during the vigil (Ironic isn’t it?).



As the torturous minutes clicked by I was waiting near the police station for any news from the search party. I could not eat or drink anything and every phone call to the police station had my nerves on edge. Finally the tragic news came - they had found a body 45 kilometers away from where the accident occurred. The relatives who went along with the search party confirmed that the body was Vijayan’s.

An ambulance was arranged from Selam to take the body to Tuticorin, our home city. The college chairman took us to the spot in his car. He had promised us that he would arrange the post-mortem immediately after recovering the body so we could take home for the funeral. The doctor and the police did not appear on the scene, despite separate vehicles being sent for each of them. I saw Vijayan’s dead body for the first time and could not control myself. My relatives did not allow me to get near the body, as it was still in the river. It was an unimaginable terrible scene. As parents we had lots of dreams about our son, now he was no more

At almost half past five in the evening, it was getting dark and started drizzling again. The police arrived at the site where the body was, but the doctor had not arrived yet. The body had been found in the neighborhood of Pennagaram, and this was where the post-mortem would be performed so we had to take the body to the hospital there. It was getting later and later. While we are waiting a man approached me saying that he had found the body and and informed the search party and demanded money right away. How can people be so cruel and merciless to anyone - especially someone who just lost his only son?



The body was still on the water in a swimming posture. I over heard the search party discussing on how to lift the body. These were their exact words "we can break the hands and tie them so that we can lift more easily". Turning to me one of them said that every time they lifted I would have to pay extra since that was not part of the search. I told them to take all my money but let us leave for our hometown to give homage to the remains of my son.



Finally we reached the hospital at Pennagaram at about eight at night, only to be told that post-mortems cannot be performed after five in the evening. So the body would have to wait another night for burial. The College Chairman again promised us that early morning by seven they would finish all the formalities and let us go. Pennagaram is very little town and we can not even buy blocks of ice to keep the body from decaying. The body was left in a mortuary where there was no cooling facility or anything to prevent the body from decaying. The windows were left wide open and a roller shutter locked the mortuary.

The search party started demanding money for their services, telling us how many times they had to lift the body to get it to the ambulance and to the inside of the mortuary. The way these peoples' mentality was truly disgusts me.

There was nowhere to stay the night in Pennagaram - the nearest place where we could stay was Dharmapuri. Some time later the college chairman left for Kodaikanal for an urgent matter, again breaking his word. The father of a student from Selam was with us, and thankfully he was very helpful to us all the time. Everyone else had gone to Dharamapuri to rest but I couldn’t go anywhere leaving the remains of my son in that place.




As Christians, we bury dead persons in a casket but where could we go for a casket that night in a place where even block of ice was not available? We found a carpenter by chance, arranging his tools for ‘Autha pooja’. (A Hindu religious procedure of respecting the tools they use in their work). Usually they will not work with those tools on that day as a symbol of respect to their God for more work in the future. But thankfully he graciously agreed to make a casket when we begged him to assemble a wooden box- he had never made a casket in his entire career. Again it was a terrible night for us all.

No comments:

Post a Comment