Hey todwal i think you are worrying too much man .
You see bro if you just connect the ends of the inductor by a conducting wire your job is done. What happens to the cell after that is immaterial to you Just see that all you want to do is short circuit it and thats it
But here comes a complication because if you do that your cell would still give you a current due to the resistor if it was not the inductor itself.So you assume that the inductor itself is the Resistor we are talking about.More over if your inductor itself is not the resistor you can never short it effectively i.e you cant have a decay initiated.
Moreover in the question i dont think he mentioned about any ideal inductor stuff so my assumption is obviously sesible.
Now writing the equation is childs play, you should be knowing that inductor is like an infinite resistor which resists any sudden change.You shold be knowing the definition of inductance and why we write Ldi/dt stuff right.
So writing the loop equation Ldi/dt-iR=0 is not a problem i think and rest is TOO OBVIOUS.The inductor doesnt practically send a current in the opposite direction Like how bhatia specified may be she was only imagining things.
Anyways man physics is full of approximations and assumptions thats why I SIMPLY LOOOOOOOVE PHYSICS.
And chandni you did speak something wrong may be you do know it .
And todwal i'll kill you if you say you didnt understand it ANYWAYS PLEASE REPLY AS FAST AS POSSIBLE