They were waiting to tell him about 2 births when call came

“He used to call once in 20 days or so, and we were waiting for his call to tell him about the new members of the family. Then we heard the news yesterday afternoon, and later a call from the Director General’s office in New Delhi confirmed it,” says Sivakami, the 39-year-old widow of Govindasamy, who is yet to see Prema’s baby herself.

Prema suffered complications after the delivery, and making matters worse, she has A -ve blood, a rare group.

Caught between worry for her daughter, grief for her 43-year-old husband, and joy for her grand-daughters, Sivakami is clinging to the slim hope that the authorities, who haven’t yet sent her a photo of Govindasamy’s body, could have mistaken someone else for her husband.

“We have been hearing the news on TV channels, but none has carried his photograph. Maybe they made a mistake while identifying the dead,” says Sivakami.

The family has been told that the body will be brought to Delhi first and then sent to Bangalore, a little under 90 km from this town, Tippanapalli village in Krishnagiri district, on the border with Karnataka.

The Tamil Nadu government has announced Rs 2 lakh from the Chief Minister’s relief fund to Govindasamy’s family, including Sivakami, their three daughters and one 14-year-old son Ganesh, who is in Class IX.

A mason with the BRO, Govindasamy was killed when a suicide bomber rammed his car against a convoy carrying Indian workers in south west Afghanistan. He had joined the force in 1983.

The incident has shaken the village, from where a majority of young men join the Armed Forces. Though many are working in troubled areas like Kashmir and the Northeast, nobody has lost life in the field in the recent past.

“I have heard of somebody being captured or killed in the Second World War. But after that, this is the first time one of our villagers is losing life to such an incident,” says retired subedar G Sundaresan, who witnessed the wars in ‘65 and ‘71.

“Over 90 per cent of the families here have their members in the Armed Forces. Every year, at least two-three persons are enrolled from the village. I have worked with some of them, including Govindasamy in Sikkim and Mizoram,” says Sampath Kumar, a relative of Govindasamy who also works with the BRO.

His month-long leave over, Kumar in fact is all packed up to leave tonight to join back duty in Sikkim. Before setting off, he will make a trip that he and every other serviceman makes in this village, including Govindasamy before him. Kumar will go salute the ‘Military Man’, a statue erected by the ex-servicemen’s association of the village in honour of their biggest employer.