A father

The body of a young boy in his 20s wrapped in a dirty white blanket was lying on the stone table, amidst the stench of cadavers and phenol smell. Gopi sat at the table near the body, and ate his breakfast with no qualms, not bothering about the sounds of the parents of the dead boy. This was his job, he worked in the morgue, day in and day out he was used to seeing blood, dead bodies, and gory scenes of victims, but nothing deterred him. ‘Gopi how many times have I told you not to eat here. How can you eat with this smell and a dead body?’ Dr Gautham, a trained pathologist, was in charge of the autopsy that day. ‘what’s the case?’ ‘head injury, skull damage, half his head is missing and he washed his hands after closing his tiffin box. ‘ok’ and Gautham examined the body from a distance, he asked Gopi to perform the autopsy while he watched. ‘ok I will give the report’. Gopi sat on his chair and didn’t bother about the wailing outside of the victim’s mother. This was his routine for the past 20 years. By evening he was a dedicated father and a loving husband. He never mixed both. Until one day, the day which broke him into pieces, when people knew he was not a heartless man. A girl of his daughter’s age hardly 14, was raped and murdered gruesomely. He wept as he saw the dried blood on the girl’s body, the cuts that the ruthless rapist had made for his entertainment. He thought of the suffering the girl would have undergone. And wept bitterly. Gotham was surprised, ‘why are you emotional? You have seen more gruesome bodies’ ‘I can see only my daughter in this girl, doctor. I was emotionless to the other bodies as it didn’t deter me. But this girl, is of the same age as my daughter, I can feel the pain, I can’ and he wept. ‘stay outside I will perform the autopsy’...