Chapter 29: chapter 29

I was relaxed to confront the fact that Satish sir was alive. This revelation came with a philosophy in my mind. I discerned in my vague imagination, " How nice it is to hear about someone rumoured to be dead is living. If only my father-in-law could be brought back to life. If only his death was a rumour." I needed to be more practical and accept the truth. I called my friend to inform her about the reality and asked her not to depend upon so much blabber. She had even insisted I put the message in the college group. It was better than I preferred to hold on until I extracted the reality. If Satish sir would have heard about it, he must have been shocked and confused and the reaction of his family.......  better not to ponder upon that, the scenario might have been beyond imagination. I and my friend kept it a secret from everyone. My school friends were concerned about my family from the day they knew about our condition. They kept checking up our my health through messages. One fine day, I got a message about the demise of one of our school friend's husband. He suffered from long covid and lost his life in the encounter. He had been hospitalised for three months approximately. The couple had two school-going kids. He got the infection when he was in his hometown to get the documents of his deceased father. This oddity shattered my patience and I came to realise the virus was killing people irrespective of age, gender, caste, colour or creed. It was not only we but millions of people who were suffering from a loss. Maybe our suffering was nothing compared to theirs.My PhD work came to a halt. There was no progress as the University got completely closed during that time. My husband tested negative after remaining in isolation for fifteen days. He turned weak. His collar bones came to be visible. The infection and the agony followed by the loss of his beloved father made him anxious. He started showing mood swings. Sometimes, he shouted at us for a silly thing. At times, he seemed engrossed in deep thinking and expressed his anxiety. But he sounded normal. My mother-in-law began planning the prayer meeting. The chairman of the Gurudwara and the priest were still waiting for the dismissal of the lockdown as community gathering was strictly not allowed. According to my mother-in-law, she was being haunted by the spirit of her husband to conduct the rites as early as possible, he should need to be redeemed. The exorcist was playing the role of dumping all sorts of evil in her innocent mind. It was hard to get her to eat at times. She cried when the reminiscences of her husband of fifty-two years tormented her day and night. Her head whirled around when she sat on her sewing machine to stitch.After a month after the death of my father-in-law, my husband was summoned by the hospital authorities to take the death certificate to complete future procedures. He didn't get a driver to escort him to the hospital where my father-in-law breathed his last. He embarked on the journey alone accompanied by Raghav. He returned home with the certificate which stated that my father-in-law suffered a heart attack at so and so time. My husband was confused to accept the fact as he had done his best to keep him alive. He enlightened me about the events that transpired that day for the first time. The doctors words and his father's memories danced in his thoughts, it seemed.