Thursday, December 20, 2012

The killer bus visits the family!

It's Lathika's funeral today. She's Lekha's aunt on whom death approached quickly and violently last evening, in the form of a private bus at the 'pump junction' of Aluva.

Lathika, the manager of a Union Bank in the area, was picked up by Radhakrishnan, her husband, to go across to a nearby firm in connection with the finalisation of a deal. Since the roads are clogged with traffic during the peak hours, they'd decided to go on a two wheeler which proved to be their undoing. They'd negotiated a busy junction and had gotten on to the slope towards the destination, when a private bus that had a malfunctioning brake hurtled towards them, struck the two wheeler throwing them off - Lathika onto the road and Radhakrishnan onto the kerbside - and went over Lathika, killing her instantly, before coming to a stop at a residential boundary wall. He's unconscious and under medical surveillance in the ICU of a nearby hospital.

Everything seemed to be timed and inevitable - I mean, she was destined to meet up with the ill fated bus at her appointed hour!

She was 49, has two daughters - one in the IT sector and the other in a bank. The elder one's married and has a three month old son while the younger one's engaged to get married shortly - and seemed to be in a hurry to see her younger daughter's marriage. And she was very fond of Lekha and me.

RIP Lathika. My humble prayer to your bubbly personality. We will miss your spontaneous laughter and the love that you showered upon us. It's our hope that Radhakrishnan, Athira and Anjali are able to tide over this tremendous loss.


Tailpiece.

(a) Having narrated the incident, I must hasten to add that the driver of the bus tried to warn them about the recalcitrant brake. Unfortunately, his loud cries fell on deaf ears(Radhakrishnan had his helmet on!).

(b) Lathika was in bad shape and all that could be seen was a shrouded body, at the funeral.

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