Epilogue

Friday, the 29th October 1999 was the second day of our visit to Chennai and would have been a day for visiting, gossipping and relishing our trip--until Amritha, my wife answered the telephone at 5.30 A.M. Her anguished cry woke us up. Deepu and Sriram, our nephews had been involved in a terrible accident in Dubai on their way back to India and had died instantly. We rushed to console the parents and siblings. But how can you console them, when your own sense of loss is inconsolable? At the end of the day, still in shock, we struggled to understand what had happened and started to realize that our lives will never be the same.

The next few days found all of us in a whirlwind of emotions- sorrow, helplessness, confusion and anger- at the Dubai authorities and at God. We agreed with the saying 'Kill a man and you are an assassin. Kill lots of men and you are a conqueror. Kill men in their prime and you are God.' The long wait for the bodies preyed on the minds of everyone.

The cremation on Tuesday was a heart-rending sight. There was not one dry eye in the crematorium. The question that all of us had was, 'Why, why to such good people?'

We had left for Chennai from Mumbai in high spirits - in anticipation of meeting all relatives in Mukund's (my nephew) wedding. But the untimely death of Deepu and Sriram cast a shadow on the function. What must have passed through Mukund's mind. who was closer to these two cousins than any of us? What do you say to a bride-groom, who flies half-way around the world in anticipation of his wedding and walks right to the funeral of two closest friends and cousins?

The shock and numbness gradually yielded way to a searching and yearning. Amritha and I had the most recent memories, as Deepu and Sriram had spent their last two months of their life in India with us. Harish (my son) was the last family member to see them, as he bid them good-bye at the Mumbai airport.

Every day we think of them. When we eat pizza, we remember Sriram's dislike of it and when we have Tirunelveli Halwa, his comment ' supera irukkuda' rings in our ears. Whenever we see Johnny Lever, their comments ' inda nai kooda inda padathile irukka' sound fresh. Whenever we see Shankar Mahadevan we recall Deepu's good-natured ribbing of Aarthi, my daughter. Their mothers were worried about their long stay in Mumbai, awaiting their visas for Saudi Arabia. But they, particularly Deepu, weren't bothered. Life is meant to be enjoyed was their motto.

The one thing that stood out during those difficult days was the closeness and support extended by every member of our family to the bereaved. Raghu (my brother-in-law) flew in , as he wanted to console his sisters in person, even if it meant a flight from Sydney to Chennai.

Gradually, we have managed to rationalise and philosophise and live with the death of Deepu and Sriram. Perhaps love makes us poets and death makes us philosophers. But we still cannot console their mothers, whose grief is best described in this poem.