THURAVOOR: Ivin Jijo had a personalised alarm that woke him up every day and a scheduler that helped him manage his daily activities. It was his father, Jijo.
No matter how late the hour or how routine his shift, Ivin, a chef with airline caterers CAFS, never missed sending his father a message upon reaching work. It was their routine. And each night, as Ivin left for his shift, Jijo would walk him to the gate and stand there until he disappeared into the darkness. Only then would the dad go back inside, pausing on his way to open the dog’s kennel – his signal that Ivin had safely left.
“But yesterday…” Jijo paused, his voice cracking. “I was on a call with a patient. I couldn’t walk him to the gate like I always did.” His eyes filled. “Still, even in the middle of that call, I reminded him to eat the mangoes I’d sliced especially for him and kept on the dining table. It looks like he ate a few pieces…two or three. It was the last thing he ate.” With those words, the weight of Jijo’s grief overflowed in form of tears.
“We never let him ride his bike at night for work as we feared stray dogs. That’s why we insisted he take the car. It wasn’t to show off our financial status…we just loved him that much,” said Jijo. “He was such a gentle soul. He never got into fights, never troubled anyone. Even if he made a mistake, they could’ve scolded him, beaten him if they wanted. Why did they kill him,” the father asked.
Jijo said he received a call from the Nedumbassery police around 12.30am on Thursday. “They said my son’s car was found parked by the roadside. As soon as I hung up, I contacted the CAFS office, where Ivin worked. They told me he had called earlier, saying he’d be late due to some trouble on the road. I tried calling Ivin directly, but he didn’t answer. I then called my wife, a nurse at Mar Sleeva Medicity in Pala, and told her something might have happened to their son,” he said.
By then he had rushed out of the house, frantically calling hospitals and the police station, hoping for any news.
“Even then, Ivin’s phone kept ringing, but no one picked up. Later, I was informed that he was injured in an accident. I called my wife again and told her to come immediately. But when I reached the reception of Little Flower Hospital, the expressions on my colleagues’ faces said everything. I asked, ‘Where is Ivin? Is he in the casualty ward? The operation theatre?’ No one answered.”
After a few moments of unbearable silence, someone gently led Jijo to a nearby room. “In that moment, I knew…I just knew he was gone,” said Jijo, a senior physiotherapist at the same hospital.