February 10th 1996 9:30 PM IST, a group of friends get into a car to celebrate a win at an inter-collegiate competition and head out to Lonavala (a hill station) from Pune(near Bombay) in India.
By 2:30 am, four of them have died in a car accident, over-run by a drunk truck driver. One (my sister) dies 10 days later.
The Bombay-Pune road has been notorious. It is called National Highway 4 (NH4). From 1996-2000, the Indian Government estimated that an average of over 4100 accidents per year happened on this 170km stretch of the highway, of which 3300 were headon. My sister's accident was one of these. The highway has some switchbacks, 2 lanes turning to 1 and 1 lane turning to two. This is hard to negotiate during the daylight hours. It is deadly when a drunk driver is negotiating it in the night.
The police officer dealing with this case told us that he got tired of complaining to the road officials that this crazy mess of switchbacks should be done away with. He dealt with almost 1-3 accidents a week.
The problem is compounded as this highway is used to transport vegetables to the Bombay markets. The vegetables have to reach Bombay by 5 am or so in the morning. The owners give the truck drivers a bottle of hooch and tell them to make the journey in 3 1/2 hours. The normal time was about 4 1/2 hours from Pune to Bombay.
So there we have it, 5 kids killed due to some vegetables and stupid switchbacks.
The accident made it to newspapers for a couple of days.
I tried looking up for the articles on the web yesterday - nothing. Life moves on, just another accident on another highway and another set of people who are dead. Let's all move on.
Though, life does not move on for the family. It is in a strange sort of way - paused. It is like one person in the family stopped growing, forever paused in memory, forever young.
The brain works around all painful memories. For me, it has reworked itself such that I have a hard time filling in the details that I knew, even the names are very hard to come by. I have to struggle to get their names, I can get the faces but not the their names. Suddenly they pop up out of the blue, just like that. It is surreal.
So 10 years after their deaths, remembering :
- Pratik Dalal,
- Chandrasekhar,
- Ashish and
- Amrita Khatri.
And posting Amrita's picture.
Wondering what they would be doing today, if they were not snatched away at the ages of 18.
Sending warm thoughts their way and to their families.
5 comments:
Amrita was one of those special people you can never forget. She was one of my sister's close friends in school in Oman. She had a laugh that lit up the world. All of us who knew her are richer for having had her in our lives. I'm sure anyone who knew your sister feels the same - so sorry about your loss.
Hi,
I was a friend of Amrita when I was in ISM. Seeing the post definitely brought up many old memories.
I share your loss.
- Pramod
amrita was my senior in ISM and I have even come to your house a couple of times. Her passing away was such a shock to all who knew and loved her. She was truely a free spirit and such a joy to be around.
Amrita was my sister's friend - so you have been to Amrita's place and not mine (thought I will clarify that).
This is a comment a long time after your post. I dont know why Amrita came to mind today. She was my senior and someone I knew through sports. Her death was a huge shock and wanted you to know that she is not forgotten.
Sending love and strength to her family.
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