My brother is taking care of the last rites and my mother and I are at the Seven Hills Hospital. He will record everything and my mother and I will watch it on video. My father had been unwell for the last six months with some internal issues. He was taking medicines for it, too, from our family physicians. He was trying to fight it out with just medicines. Given the Coronavirus situation, he did not want to go to the hospital. He had also been travelling to religious places like Haridwar and Badrinath. He did the Char Dham Yatra in the last six months whenever he would feel better. When I would tell him not to travel, he would say, ‘Beta, yahi toh time hai mere paas. I am already 66 and I won’t get to travel.’ He would take my mother along for all his travels.”

-------------------

Feeling the vacuum left by his father's untimely death, Sanjeev Rathod, son of late music composer Shravan Rathod, wishes he had stopped him from going to Kumbh Mela. Hospitalized after testing positive for Coronavirus along with his mother, Sanjeev grieves that he was unable to perform the last rites of his father

"My brother Darshan did the rituals as he tested negative. Mother and I are in the hospital. We are all struggling to cope with this irreplaceable loss to our family," says Sanjeev, who further informed that Shravan suffered from breathing issues six months back. "Once he felt better, he again started travelling. He went to Badrinath Temple, then he went to Jagannath Puri in Odisha and his final destination was Kumbh Mela (with mom)."

Unaware of his father's plans, Sanjeev says, "He never told us he was going to Kumbh. He told us he was going to Haridwar. (I repeatedly) asked him, if he was fine. If it was in my hands, I would have never let him go. But I have seen people dying (despite) sitting at home. Catching the infection or dying is inevitable."

Shravan had a multi-organ failure after testing positive for the virus.