A morgue watchman’s long wait

Since Tuesday, there has been a teeming rush of visitors—‘‘close to 200’’—all impatiently jostling to count their dead, but secretly hoping that they don’t find them in the cold, dark room smelling of blood. By Wednesday evening, 20 bodies were counted and handed over to grieving relatives, and in many cases, to worried colleagues who spent difficult hours till the families collected the dead.

But not this one.

Till Thursday evening, the body had many visitors but no one laid claim to it. ‘‘No one seems to know who he is,’’ Boricha said. ‘‘Maybe, the man was a migrant in ever-expanding Mumbai. Maybe, he was an unlucky orphan. What do you think?’’ he threw the question at police constable D Patil. ‘‘Will he be claimed?’’

At noon, a woman from Vasai came frantically looking for her husband, but once inside the morgue, she looked relieved. ‘‘He’s not here. I’ve checked every hospital,’’ she smiled. ‘‘I’m sure he’s stayed over at a friend’s place. He often does so when he’s angry.’’

In the 14 years he has spent at the hospital, Boricha has learnt to come to terms with his job. During the 1993 Mumbai blasts, he was always on the edge of despair, dealing with corpses that were so mutilated that they couldn’t be identified. ‘‘At least, people can make out who’s who this time,’’ he said. ‘‘In ‘93, mothers couldn’t recognise children, men couldn’t trace wives.’’

But guarding a corpse outside a nearly-empty morgue since Wednesday night has been his longest wait. Six hours since the lady from Vasai left, there was another visitor, an old man from Allahabad looking for his missing son.

Manuel D’souza was identified. It was 6 pm, Thursday. Finally, Boricha could go home.