In a moving incident, a migrant couple, Rajesh and Anitha, from Lalganj town of Raibareli district of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), who reached the railway station of Tirupati on a wintry evening of December 2019, headed back to their hometown five years later, carrying the body of their four-year-old son in an ambulance. The boy died after accidentally slipping into a water sump on July 26 (Friday) night.
After their arrival in Chittoor district, the then newly married couple settled as workers at a bakery in Nagalapuram village on the Puttur-Chennai national highway. Fate was cruel to them and they were thrown out of employment on March 24, 2020, following the countrywide COVID-19 lockdown.
COVID-19 ordeal
The couple, however, dropped the idea of boarding a COVID special train bound for Lucknow as Anitha was pregnant and expecting a baby shortly and they didn’t want to risk their lives by making a gruelling journey under the circumstances prevailing then. At that time, Rajesh had just ₹85 in his pocket.
When COVID-19 was raging, a male baby was born to the couple. With the help of their “kind-hearted” owner, they led a precarious life for the next one year, before the lockdown was lifted.
With the fond hope of naming the child in Hardwar at an opportune hour, the couple gave him a temporary nickname Micky. The couple cherished big dreams — to name the child after Lord Shiva, send him to an English medium school, and make him a Collector — not knowing what fate had in store for them.
When Rajesh was at the shop, and Anitha was busy cooking, Micky while playing fell into a two-foot water sump in the courtyard. After a two-hour search, the boy was detected with faint signs of life. The doctors at the Government Hospital at Nagalapauram, however, declared him brought dead.
Denied entry
Gripped by shock, the couple were carrying their beloved’s body to their rented house, hoping for a funeral on Saturday. However, the house owner had reportedly objected to bringing the body home on a Friday, considered auspicious. The couple broke down on the road and in no time took a stern decision — to take the body of their beloved to their native place in U.P. and never to return.
The bakery proprietor who was kind to them for four years kept urging them to change their mind, but in vain. Budging to their emotions and sentiments, he arranged for their 2,000-plus km journey in an ambulance along with Micky’s frozen body. In an hour, with a pair of clothes and bedsheets, the couple embarked on a long trip with broken hearts.
The neighbourhood of Uttarakota street of Nagalapuram bid a tearful adieu to the torn couple, and lifeless Micky, whom many of them fondled for four years. “Please give me a call after reaching there,” muttered a neighbour to them, and the soothing words faded in the din of emotional outbursts.
