This is an archive article published on July 16, 2020
Retired maths teacher dies of Covid-19 in ICU, husband admitted to same hospital unaware of her death
Ritesh says he received a phone call from the hospital on Tuesday evening, and doctors told him his father’s condition had deteriorated and he needed to be put on ventilator.
A 61-YEAR-OLD retired maths teacher, Sudha Rosaih, died of Covid-19 at the intensive care unit (ICU) of a private hospital in Somatne Phata on Wednesday, but her husband, admitted on the bed beside her, is unaware of his wife’s death. Known for her teaching style, Sudha, who taught at Kamalnayan Bajaj School in Sambhajinagar area, was popular among her students for making mathematics simple and uncomplicated.
The couple’s son, Ritesh (27), has not had the courage to break the news to his father even as his mother’s funeral was held late on Wednesday. The family lives in Indrayaninagar area of Pimpri-Chinchwad, where they also own a small-scale industrial unit. The couple’s only son, Ritesh too is under home isolation after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
“My parents were undergoing treatment at the ICU of the private hospital. My father was admitted first six days ago. Two days later, my mother had breathing problems. I got her admitted to the same private hospital where my dad was undergoing treatment,” Ritesh says.
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Ritesh says he received a phone call from the hospital on Tuesday evening, and doctors told him his father’s condition had deteriorated and he needed to be put on ventilator.
After this conversation, he spoke to his mother. “She was frightened when I spoke to her, and was worried about my father. Doctors told me she suffered a cardiac arrest,” he says, adding that his mother had diabetes and high blood pressure, but both ailments were under control.
He says he had to lie to his father about his mother’s death when he called him on Thursday to ask about her. Sudha’s funeral was held late on Wednesday.
“My father asked me about my mother’s condition. I lied to him that she was moved to another ward as her condition had improved. My parents were next to each other in the ICU, and were on oxygen support. When my mother’s body was being moved out of the hospital, my father tried asking the doctors as to what had happened. They told him that they needed to conduct some tests and were taking her out of the ICU,” he says.
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He says their industrial unit also had to be closed. “My father is in the ICU, I am under home isolation. We had to close the unit. My father was asking whether it was functioning… I told him it was, and that he should not worry,” he adds.
Pratima Kulkarni, a PTA member, said, “Sudha Rosaih was a strict but popular teacher among students. My son was her student when he was in Class IX. I had interacted with her several times. She was always polite with parents. She was known for her solid grasp of the subject.”
K Harinarayan of Pune Malayalee Federation said, “As soon as we got to know about the family’s plight, we offered help… Sudha Rosaih was well-known for her teaching style, which was quite popular among students.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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Sudha Rosaih,
