Man Completes Mother's Rites After Locating Body Among Orphaned Corpses

TIRUPATI: The second wave of coronavirus has wrecked the lives of many families, where people have lost their loved ones, sole breadwinners, youngsters, parents and orphaned many children. There have been instances where members of the same family struck by COVID have been hospitalised in different places and were unaware of the death of the other. Unless they are in constant touch through the phone things are fine, but there are certain situations where they cannot communicate with each other to know about their welfare.

In a similar instance, a man from Tirupati was not informed about his mother's death but managed to cremate her in the last hour thanks to the efforts of few people including the COVID-19 Joint Action Committee (JAC) under the Tirupati United Muslim Association and Tirupati YSRCP MLA Bhuma Karunakar Reddy, who are helping complete the last rites of bodies, that are lying in the mortuary either because entire families were infected or because the kin was hesitant to cremate them.

In this heartwrenching story, a man named Surendra lived with his wife, children and mother at Korlagunta village in Tirupati, Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. After developing symptoms, Surendra along with his 62-year-old mother Lakshmi Devi and his wife underwent COVID testing and results showed that the three were positive. They purchased corona medicine kits available at a medical shop and stayed in home isolation. But three or four days later as their health condition didn't improve, the three of them had to be hospitalised on an emergency basis.

He could not manage a bed for his mother in private hospitals and finally got one in the old maternity hospital. The husband and wife were admitted to another private hospital. In two days, the couple was billed around Rs 2 lakh and as they could not afford to pay they were discharged and sent home. Surendra was worried about the welfare of his mother Lakshmi Devi as she did not have a mobile phone. The situation and the wait were excruciating for the young man as he and his wife were under home isolation and were not able to go anywhere for ten days.  After he recovered on the 29th of this month, he immediately rushed to the old maternity hospital and enquired about his mother. Right from the medical staff to the ward boys none of them gave him an answer and some said that they had no idea. Surendra finally took the help of a Village Volunteer who to told him to meet the Sectoral officer. Expressing his anguish over his missing mother, Surendra was informed that his mother had died on the 19th and as there was nobody to claim the body they might have completed the cremation considering it an orphaned corpse. He and his wife went to the Mamandoor forest where the orphaned corpses were cremated in the hope to see if his mother's body was still there.

Meanwhile, Muslim COVID-19 JAC and Tirupati  MLA Bhumana Karunakar were conducting funeral rites for 16 bodies. As a last resort, the Sectoral officer called Surendra and asked him to check if his mother's body was one among the 16 bodies. Surendra who identified that one of them was his mother Lakshmi Devi's body, broke down in tears in relief that he was at least able to locate her body at the last minute. MLA Bhumana, and the Muslim Covid-19 JAC members condoled Surendra and let him complete his mother's last rites there.

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