Singhpur, Deoria (Uttar Pradesh)
On June 18, it was just another leisurely Sunday afternoon for 30-year-old Rajan Yadav who had gone to meet his wife at his in-law’s place. The father of two kids got some mangoes and sweets packed for his relatives and zoomed off to the Sundarpur village on his motorbike.
Upon reaching the village, he realised that his father was also present at his in-law’s house and upon presenting the gifts to his in-laws, he decided to return to his house as he was shy of sharing the drawing room with his father.
About half an hour later, Yadav felt uneasy, got off his bike en route to Singhpur village and decided to rest under a tree. However, he soon started feeling anxiously restless and couldn’t sit still.
Also Read: “He just collapsed & died” — Families in Ballia recall last moments of their loved ones
“The villagers found him in a troubled state under a tree, they offered him some water, sprinkled some water on his face and then he started dozing off. People thought that he was getting some rest due to tiredness, nobody realised that he was living the last moments of his life,” Rajesh Yadav, Rajan’s cousin brother told Gaon Connection.
“My brother died at around 2 PM and we got to know it at 5 PM. We all thought he was out there with his friends but we got a call from a local youth who had searched for the name plate number on Rajan’s bike and got to know about the contact details of the bike owner from the authorities… we soon took him to the district hospital where he was declared dead,” Rajesh added.
Also Read: Ballia, UP: “She fainted and never came back to her senses again. The doctors declared her dead.”
The young man who ran a tea-shop to earn a livelihood is survived by his 28-year-old wife Ramavati Devi, six-year-old son Ashish, and five-year-old daughter Kriti. Rajan was amongst the 48 people in the Deoria district who died on June 17-June 18 when the mercury surged to 45 degrees celsius and the India Meteorological Department [IMD] issued an alert for severe heatwave conditions in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The situation is akin to the neighbouring district of Ballia which has made headlines due to at least 68 deaths in similar conditions.
However, both in Ballia and Deoria, district authorities mention that there is no direct link between the deaths and the heatwave conditions. When Gaon Connection approached SK Mishra, the chief medical superintendent of the district hospital, he mentioned that most of those who died were elderly people who suffered from prior illnesses. “Most of the people died on June 17. The death toll that day was 30 and the second highest number of people died the next day on June 18 when 18 people were recorded as dead at the district hospital. However, most of these people had an adverse medical history and were already sick,” Mishra told Gaon Connection.
However, when asked about the symptoms of the patients who suffer a heatstroke, the senior doctor stated that anxiety, breathlessness, body pain and fever are the classic signs of such a patient.
“Such a patient should be provided with ORS [oral rehydration solution] and should be taken to a hospital as soon as possible,” the official said.
Lorik Yadav, deceased Rajan’s father.
Meanwhile, Lorik Yadav, the 58-year-old father of the deceased told Gaon Connection that he wished he could speak to his son before he left for the house on that Sunday afternoon.
“He was very shy of me… he never visited his in-laws’ house when I was there fearing that he might be accorded with greater respect and attention in the drawing room. My boy tried to avoid the embarrassment that day and innocently went back home. Only if I knew I was talking to the young man for the last time, I would have talked to him a bit more…” the father said.
Written by Pratyaksh Srivastava
