Alel was still standing in the porch of his house on John Paul II street even weeks after cyclone Ockhi. The two-year-old smiled at everyone who passed by, and kept looking again and again at the mud path leading to the house, hoping that the next man who came that way might be his father, Yesudas.
Some of the houses on the street were decorated with a star and glittering lights. But Ajikuttan (as his family fondly calls Alel) stood in darkness. His mother Ajitha, 33, a homemaker, was inside, crying; she had been in bed for days. Every now and then, Ajikuttan would hug her and then return to the porch.
This was just before Christmas 2017. His mother had assured the little boy that Yesudas will come by Christmas day, bringing new clothes and a cake. But Alel’s father had not returned.
Yesudas Shimayon, 38, was one of the fishermen who set out from his three-room house in Karode village of Neyyattinkara taluk in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala when the cyclone descended on November 30. He went to the sea in the evening of November 29 along with four co-workers. One of them was his neighbour Alexander Podithampi, 28, three were from Tamil Nadu. Alexander and his wife Jasmin John, 21, have a 10-month-old baby girl, Ashmi Alex.
