AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 122 of 167 Any hopes of heading out after breakfast was dashed. The grey skies had given way to heavy downpour. We headed back to our room. I picked up the Famous Five book from my stash of reading material and got reading. Meanwhile, Shreyas had finished his morning ablutions and we had run out of diapers for him. Dad headed out in the torrential rain to buy the diapers. And Then… By 10 AM, the rains had stopped. Amma stepped out to the Dining area to sterilise Shreyas’ feeding bottle. On her way to the dining area, Amma went to the common bathroom area to wash some of Shreyas’ stained clothes. The common bathroom had rows of cubicles of shower on one side and taps for washing on the other side. Amma finished washing the clothes and was heading out when she heard a pained growl from one of the cubicles. There stood a man stepping out of the cubicle with a heavily bandaged head and multiple bandages across his forearms and torso. He made eye contact with Amma and darted back into the cubicle and the creaky latch snapped back. Amma was stupefied by what she saw. On our way back, she passed one of the many rooms in the corridor. One of the door along the corridor was ajar and she heard a lady sobbing loudly and heard her cries for help in Tamil , “ Aandava !! Epidi aayidute. Ippo naan enne pannuvaen! ” (Oh Lord ! What has happened to us! Now what will I do?) Judging from the accent of Tamil, Amma figured she was speaking Tamil with our Palakkad accent. She peeped into the room and saw a young women bent over the side of the bed. Amma entered the room and started speaking to her. “What happened? Why are you crying?!” asked Amma “My husband is dying and I don’t what to do.” She said. “Dying? Where is he?! Is he with a doctor?” At this moment, a man walked into the room. As Amma recollects, the man was startled by her presence. The lady points in the direction of the man, “There. That’s my husband.” Amma went to the table in the room and poured some water into the glass and gave it to the lady. The lady sipped water and took breaks to sob in between. The man was a dark man standing well over 6 feet. Amma had seen himmoments ago in the bathroom. He had a heavily bandaged head and lots of gashes on the face. He murmured something and sat on the bed next to his wife.