More scars, and a question, why?

‘‘We heard of an unidentified patient on bed no 32 but there was no such patient here. Then the staff said it was body number 32, not bed,’’ said the retired head nurse who spent over 40 hours searching casualty wards and mortuaries of several city hospitals.

At this mortuary too it was an ordeal. With the head badly disfigured, the family was handed a strip of a blue-and-white striped shirt for identification.

It was only when Rodrigues cleaned the chest and spotted the scar that had been left by a bypass surgery her brother had undergone a few years back, that the family gave up hope.

‘‘After his heart was operated upon, we told him to reduce his working hours. Earlier, he would return from the bank in the evening and head directly to teach children in a night school in Goregaon,’’ recollected Joseph’s elder brother Austin, a retired management professional about the youngest of five.

Perhaps Joseph will live on in the learning he has imparted to the less fortunate children he spent hours with. ‘‘Yes, that is there,’’ Rodrigues says wiping her tears and putting on her spectacles. And yet, almost as an afterthought, asked: ‘‘But what about the space that will be vacant when the family meets this Sunday to pray?’’ A question that Tuesday’s absurd cruelty has left hundreds grappling with.