Death on the campus

Yesterday was a terrible day for some in the Seminary, especially Rinoy. It all began in the morning, when I had to tell him that there was a dead body floating in the lake beside the Seminary! Then began the whole process of informing people concerned and getting the state machinery to work... which is easier said than done!! Luckily for us, the lake belongs to the Parish and therefore we have no real 'legal' complications. However, it borders our property and is considered by most as the 'Seminary lake'. Till lunch time, we we not sure who, what, how... to make matters worse, the body was already bloated and lying upside down in the waters.

Things began to worsen when on our way to Vizag to attend the funeral of a diocesan Priest at 1.30 pm, Fr KT, Fr Parish Priest, Fr Wilson and I get the news that the body 'could be' of a missing boarding boy! Now that was serious matter, given the fact that the Parish Priest is the boarding in charge. However, they attended the funeral and we were back in the house by 7.30 pm. By then the body had been fished out of the lake and the police were doing their usual investigations - all in our campus. Things became a bit more complicated when a relative of the boy started acting smart and instigating the father of the boy, who was very calm and sober all along. However, there were enough sensible people to hush him up. A while later the mother reached the place and was inconsolable.

The body was highly decomposed and was smelling badly. I am told by those who carried the body out of the water to the roadside (all heavily drunk) that the parts were all coming apart. Being the second one to see the body, after one of the Brothers first saw and reported the matter to me, I was not affected at all. After having been involved with a much gruesome death case earlier, I was quite calm about things. So I was mostly with the Brothers trying to get them to study rather than get all excited - and later terrified - about this whole affair.

The boy was a tenth standard boy - very careless and unruly (says the Parish Priest). He had a long standing record of running away from the boarding. But how he landed up in the lake, dead, is a bit mysterious. A couple of his companions seem to know something as they were with him a couple of days ago, exactly the time he disappeared. It may be a while before the truth surfaces. Anyway, God bless his soul... and his family.