‘They are both at home.’
‘Thank God. If you hear from them, you must call me at once at the police station. I will get the message wherever I am. Tell the Rai Bahadur not to worry. No, on second thoughts, if the Rai Bahadur doesn’t know what has happened, don’t tell him anything at all.’ But L.N. Agarwal, who knew how news travelled, was sure that all Brahmpur – indeed, half of India – had probably heard the news of the disaster already.
The Chief Minister nodded at the Home Minister, a note of sympathy entering his voice: ‘Ah, Agarwal, I didn’t realize –’
L.N. Agarwal’s eyes filled with tears, but he said nothing.
After a while he said: ‘Has the press been here?’
‘Not here, Sir. They were taking photographs of the dead at the site itself.’
‘Get them here. Ask them to be cooperative. And get any photographers on the government payrolls here as well. Where are the police photographers? I want all these bodies photographed carefully. Each one of them.’
‘But, Sir!’
‘These bodies have begun to stink. Soon they will become a source of disease. Let relatives claim their own dead and take them away. The rest must be cremated tomorrow. Arrange a site for cremation on the bank of the Ganga with the help of the Mela authorities. We must have photographs of all the dead who have not yet been identified either by their relatives or by other means of identification.’
The Home Minister walked up and down the lines of the dead, fearing the worst. At the end he said: ‘Are there any more dead?’
‘Sir, they are still coming in. Mainly from the first aid centres.’
‘And where are the first aid centres?’ L.N. Agarwal still could not control the agitation in his heart.
‘Sir, there are several, some quite far away. But the camp for lost and injured children is just over there.’
The Home Minister knew his own grandchildren were safe. He wanted above all to scour the first aid centres, where the injured were lying, before they began to be dispersed – by his own instructions – through the hospitals of the city. But something struggled in his heart, and he sighed and said: ‘Yes, I’ll go there first.’
The Chief Minister, S.S. Sharma, had begun to suffer from the heat, and was forced to return. The Home Minister went on to the compound where the children were being temporarily housed. It was chiefly their names that were being announced in the raucous and melancholy messages that the loudspeakers were now broadcasting continuously over the sands. ‘Ram Ratan Yadav of Village Makarganj in District Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, a child of about six years old, is waiting for his parents in the lost children compound near the police station. Kindly come to collect him there.’ But many children –- and the ones here ranged from three months to ten years in age – did not know their names or the names of their villages; and the parents of some of the children, who were whimpering or weeping or just sleeping from shock and exhaustion, were themselves lying stilled in death in the nearby police enclosure.
Women volunteers were feeding the children and giving them what comfort they could. They had compiled lists of those who had been found – incomplete as such lists necessarily were – and transmitted them to the central control room, so that they could be matched with a state-wise list of the missing that was being compiled there. But it was clear to the Home Minister that the foundling children would, like the dead, have to be photographed if they were not claimed soon.
‘Take a message to the police station –’ he began. And then his heart almost stopped for joy and relief as he heard his daughter’s voice say: ‘Papa.’
‘Priya.’ The name, which meant ‘beloved’ was never truer than now. He looked at her, and began to weep. Then he embraced her and asked, noticing her sad face: ‘Where is Vakil Sahib? Is he all right?’
‘Yes, Papa, he’s over there.’ She pointed to the far end of the compound. ‘But we can’t find Veena’s child. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Have you checked at the police station? I didn’t look at the children there.’
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘And?’
‘No.’ After a pause she said: ‘Do you want to talk to Veena? She and her mother-in-law are frantic with worry. Veena’s husband is not even in town.’
‘No. No.’ L.N. Agarwal, after fearing he had lost his child, could not bear to face someone else in the same anguish.
‘Papa –’
‘All right. Give me a minute or two.”
In the end he went over to Mahesh Kapoor’s daughter, and said what words of comfort and practicality he could. If Bhaskar had not been found so far at the police station the chances were good, etc… But even as he spoke he heard how hollow his words must sound to the mother and the grandmother. He told them that he would go around to the first aid centres and phone up Bhaskar’s grandfather at Prem Nivas if there was any news, either good or bad; they too should phone in periodically to check.