A childless couple, Joy and Jancy were inseparable. They had shared their joys and sorrows for 26 years and felt safe in each other’s company.
Neither contemplated living out their days alone.
But on February 15 this year Joy’s life was snuffed out in a bloody accident caused by an overzealous private bus driver.
The last time Jancy spoke to her husband, he was travelling in a bus. His voice was barely audible above the noise. Little did she know that the very same bus would snuff out the joy of her life.
Moments after that call, Joy was thrown out of the bus as the driver tried to evade a speeding vehicle that was heading in the opposite direction near the General Hospital. A construction worker, Joy had gone to visit a relative recuperating at the hospital after the day’s work.
“He was sitting on the seat near the footboard when the bus swirled violently, flinging him out. His head banged against the road and he dropped dead. But the bus did not stop and came to a halt only after I and a few other passengers screamed,” said Joseph, the victim’s brother-in-law, who had accompanied him on that fateful day.
Jancy, who lives in Kumbalanghi, was informed of the accident hours later. “We were renovating the house at that time. He could not see it completed. The Rs.1 lakh that I received from the Chief Minister’s relief fund helped clear our debts,” she said.
A chronic diabetes patient who also suffers from high blood pressure and cholesterol, Jancy is finding it hard to cope with the loss of her life partner. Her request for widow pension is yet to be sanctioned almost a year after she applied for it. She now survives each day thanks to the care and help of her brother.
Her lawyer told her that the case would come up for hearing on July 17. But it was postponed. Tears rolled down her cheeks when asked whether she didn’t want to see the driver responsible for her husband’s death punished.
“But that’s not going to bring my husband back to life,” said Jancy, the wound caused by the death of her beloved still fresh in her mind.
