He had gone fishing in a boat with several other men. "He died saving another man, he never thought about his own life or of his family," she says, sobbing.
"What will I do now? He was the sole earner in the family."
Kalpana Raptan is now a bagh bidhoba or tiger widow. Many women are tiger widows here, especially in the islands. They report that men frequently molest them, and that traffickers find it easier to prey on young widows.
Babu Raptan had moved to Bombay some years ago to work as a construction worker. In March when the Union government suddenly imposed a lockdown citing the pandemic, millions of people like him were forced back to their hometowns.
Comment: Back in October the death tally up to that point was half the total noted above: Tiger kills fisherman in the Sundarbans, India - 19th such death in the area this year.