Deciphering His Love

66 | The One With The Search

March 2021

S H R E E     P R A S A D

The last two months have been a mad rush of emotions. The house has been buried in dead silence for two months. We all had one question running in our minds: "What happened to Madhav?"

Things were worse for me. My pregnancy was getting worse. I spent several minutes throwing up each morning. Along with that I had swollen ankles, a heavy head and chest burning like a furnace the whole time. Things weren't this difficult during my first pregnancy.

Madhu was the person who was most affected in the past two months. She didn't cry in front of us. 

Every night, once she was certain that I was fast asleep, she would slip out of the bed. She grabs the framed picture of the three of us and walks outside the room and downstairs - to Madhav's home office room. I've noticed how she would look at Madhav's face on that framed picture. She would run her little fingers down his smiling face before breaking into a fit of sobs. The sobs became wails that would make her face red and a heaving chest.

She would fall asleep there itself. It was Shyaam who would bring her all the way up to the bedroom.

Social media was abuzz and the hashtag #PrayForMadhav has been trending on Twitter for more than a month. Mass vigils and prayers were conducted in churches, mosques and temples in Mumbai.

Search operations were being carried out endlessly. The Navy and the Coastguard worked nonstop for a sign, for some evidence, for some news.

* * * * * 

"Do you have a vision, Officer Verma?" Came a buzz from the walkie talkie that Officer Verma had in his sea pod.

"G.R.Verma here. I can see the jet." 

"Great. Attach the magnet and let's drag the vessel all the way to the surface." The reply came.

It took two and half hours to haul the jet up to the surface level and to the nearest shore in Guam.  The forensic team had their tents set up and their equipment up running. 

The tall and dark Officer Verma stood beside his fellow Navy officers as two technicians cut through the jet's entrance with an electrical drill.

"Do you think everyone inside is-" Verma asks his short balding supervisor.

"Dead? Definitely!" The balding supervisor asks. "The passengers have been locked in that metal coffin of a jet for two whole months. Oxygen would have run out within the first few days, and you expect them all to be alive?"

"So your saying-"

The technicians carve out a big opening on the jet. The supervising officer clears his throat. 

"Team, prepare for entry with masks, gloves and body bags." He announces to the troop of his men standing beside him. "Body bags must be handed over to the Forensics in the tents. Grab anything that looks suspicious or out of place. Get the Guam local authority's permission to conduct the final rites of the dead as soon as investigations are concluded. We return their ashes to the respective families afterwards."

He turns to Verma. "You ought to wear a mask as well, son. You'll soon get the ghastly stink of four decaying corpses."

* * * * * 

"Radha, I am sorry to hear about your son going missing." Said Mr. Chaudhry, a tall fair middle aged man who had a head full of silvery hair who was also the CEO of the Chaudhry Silk Empire, RKGOC's major competitor.  He shuffles on the sofa he was seated on beside RK. "I know for a fact that he will return soon. I may be your biggest competitor, but that little boy of yours is a very visionary businessman."