The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : He is now a shattered man

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He is now a shattered man

Afshan Yasmeen and Aditya Preetham

‘Had we taken the earlier bus, my wife would have been
alive today’

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Inconsolable: Ravi, husband of Sudha who died in a blast at Madivala in Bangalore on Friday, recuperating at NIMHANS.

Bangalore: Ravi, whose wife died in the low-intensity blast at the Madivala bus stop on Friday, is a shattered man.

With memories of the last moments he spent with Sudha, who was killed on the spot, Mr. Ravi is trying to come to terms with events that have changed his life forever.

Recuperating at the casualty ward in NIMHANS, Mr. Ravi told The Hindu on Saturday: “I had pain in the chest for the last two months. We had come to consult a doctor at St. John’s Hospital, who asked me to get admitted immediately. But we needed Rs. 2,000 for that and we had only Rs. 1,300. So, we decided to go home and arrange for the remaining money and return.”

“We saw a packed bus to our area and did not take it. I asked Sudha to wait at the stop as I wanted to go to relieve myself. Even before I could walk a few steps, I heard a loud sound and before I could realise what was going on, I saw my wife lying in a pool of blood. My head was also bleeding. I cried for help, but nobody came to our rescue. I was dazed and did not know what to do. The police then took me to NIMHANS. My wife would have been alive if we had taken the earlier bus,” said an emotionally upset Mr. Ravi, who cannot even attend his wife’s funeral on Sunday.

He was taken to the mortuary at Victoria Hospital on Saturday to have a last glimpse of his wife before her parents took the body to her village for the funeral.

With old and ailing parents at Kurubaraboodihal, his hometown in Chikmagalur district, and a widowed sister-in-law, who fractured her leg recently, Mr. Ravi has no one to take care of him. His elder brother Thimma Shetty, a MESCOM employee in Chikmagalur, said he was worried about Mr. Ravi as the whole family was incapacitated.

“I have to report for duty on Sunday. There is no way that I can take my younger brother with me to Chikmagalur. I am scared to leave him here because there is no one to take care of him. I do not know what to do,” Mr. Shetty said. With the doctors having assured him that Mr. Ravi would recover soon, Mr. Shetty is planning to leave him in the care of a family friend.

Meanwhile, doctors said the condition of the three injured persons admitted to St John’s Hospital is stable. Two of them — Muniyappa and Anbu — who were treated as outpatients on Friday, got themselves admitted to the hospital on Saturday as they said could not tolerate the pain. Another person, Muniraju, who suffered a torn cheek in the blast, will undergo facial surgery on Monday.

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