Author: Shevlin Sebastian
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: July 16, 2006
Introduction: 'Tushit taught me to be strong'.
Meeta Shah struggles to cope with the demise of her husband and the death
of their dreams
The living room of Meeta Shah's sixth-floor
flat in suburban Dahisar is filled with people, mostly women. Meeta is sitting
on a dhurrie, beside a low windowsill on which is placed a garlanded portrait
of her late husband Tushit, 44, an equity dealer. When she sees me at the
door, she beckons with her hand. But I prefer to stay where I am. Then, one
by one, they hug her, her colleagues from the Oxford Public School at Charkop,
where Meeta, 44, works as a student counselor. "Be strong," says
one, in an orange saree.
Apart from Meeta, there is her brother, Hasit,
other family members, Tushit's childhood friend, Mayur Desai, and daughter
Esha, 16, who is wearing a white T-shirt, with 'Germany' written across it.
I ask Meeta how she heard the news. "I
was at a friend's place when he mentioned that the TV news channels were announcing
bomb blasts on the local trains," she recalls. "I rushed home because
that was the time Tushit was usually on a train." She tried several times
to call him on his cellphone, but could not get through. "I told my daughter
Esha, 'Keep on trying, keep on trying,' she says. "All the lines were
jammed. No calls were going through."
In the end, it was a girl travelling in the
compartment next to the first-class compartment, which blew up at Jogeshwari,
who got through to an uncle, who called up Hasit. She had found Tushit's wallet
and cellphone. "She said Tushit was being sent to a hospital but she
could not say which, because she was not allowed to get into the ambulance."
So Meeta and Esha, along with a neighbour and his wife, rushed to Goregaon's
municipal hospital. But the hospital authorities directed them to Cooper Hospital
in Vile Parle. From South Mumbai, Hasit, his parents and other relatives had
also set out for Cooper, while Mayur set out from Dahisar.
When they reached Cooper at 11 pm, it was
a chaos. "It looked like a slaughterhouse," says Meeta. "The
bodies were all piled up, one on top of the other. We had to trample over
so many bodies." Finally, the authorities laid them out in an orderly
manner and Mayur found Tushit's body.
After that, came the formalities. "Initially,
there was talk that all bodies would be released only after a post mortem,"
says Hasit. "Naturally, this did not go down well with the people waiting
to take their loved ones home. Then came a new order that stated that postmortems
would be conducted only on those bodies which had not been identified."
There were more hassles: The Mumbai police
and railway police had panchnamas to be filled. There were three copies to
each but since there was a shortage of carbon paper and no photocopying machine,
each copy had to be filled in individually or photocopied later. "There
was a long queue," remembers Meeta. Thankfully, some volunteers rushed
around to get the forms photocopied, while others handed out refreshments.
In the end, the Shahs were able to take Tushit's body out of the hospital
at 3.30 am.
"I saw him last when he left for his
Worli office at 7.15 am," says Meeta. "We had tea, he had toast
and butter and he was happy, because Esha, who had finished her Class 10 exams,
had just got her admission confirmed in Patkar College." She had to do
the formalities for Esha's admission that day. "So Tushit told me, 'Get
everything done, we will go out for a celebratory dinner tonight,"' says
Meeta.
She remembers what Tushit was wearing that
day-black trousers and a white shirt with thin, red lines. "It was one
of my favourite shirts," says Meeta.
She is shaking with sobs now Mother and daughter
cling to each other. Esha does not cry: tears just flow down her face silently
It is too painful for me; I look outside. At a distance, I can see a wide
expanse of mangroves. And I can hear the chirping of sparrows.
When Meeta recovers, I ask her about her marriage.
"Tushit means heaven in Sanskrit... so what else can I say," she
says. "I had a most beautiful marriage. On December 11, we would have
completed 20 years. He said that on our 25th wedding anniversary, our daughter
would be celebrating her 21st birthday and we should have a big party"
Meeta bursts into tears but recovers quickly.
"Tushit was very loving and caring,"
she says. "He went out of his way to help people. He would never get
scared. My husband taught me to be strong. Now I will see how much he has
taught me."
The silence hangs heavy as I say goodbye.
Downstairs, at the housing society office, retired administrator G.M. Mehta
tells me Tushit was the secretary of the society "He was a gentleman
who co-operated with everybody," he says. At the gate, Brij Mohan, the
guard, says simply, "He was a very nice man."
I spot Mayur, who is rushing back to his TV
repair shop, and I ask him what I couldn't, with the family around-how badly
injured was Tushit's body? He tells me, but I can't bring myself to put it
into words here.
