Brussels victim body brought home to Chennai

The soft wails of Raghavendran Ganesan’s grandmother crying out “Raju, why have you left me” filled the air in an otherwise dead silent Jyothi Mangala Nagar in Sithalapakkam. It was 3.30 pm and the techie, who lost his life in the deadly Brussels bombing, was to reach his aunt’s home here in the next 40 minutes. Gloom had descended on the locality much earlier.

Locals pointed hands to keep directing anyone exiting the Ottiyambakkam main road to the house where dozens of family members and Infosys employees had been camping since the news broke confirming Raghavendran’s death in the Brussels metro blast as he was travelling in the same compartment as the suicide bomber.

Only one thing was on everyone’s lips — terrorism. It cost Raghavendran his life in Brussels but the brutality echoed at Sithalapakkam. “It was a bracelet and a ring that he wore which helped the family identify [his body]. The DNA test was necessary because the body was blown to bits,” said Margaret, a neighbour.

Uncertainty surrounding Raghavendran’s whereabouts had kept the family’s hopes alive, including those of his wife Vaishali.

Family members recalled how she had been expecting to see a fit-as-a-fiddle Raghavendran come back and take her in his arms until late Monday. Vaishali had been staying at Kovilambakkam with her parents and had only come to Sithalapakkam on Tuesday morning. “The boy had only recently left after naming their boy child in a 28th-day ceremony. The child is not even 90 days old. He was to come back in May,” Margaret added.

To describe the state of mind of the family members who were close to Raghavendran as shocked would be to understate it. The aunt was as inconsolable as the grandmother. “She had taken care of him when he was in college for nearly four years,” remarked a family member.

Outside, curiosity among the gathered was only increasing as they could not gauge just how much of Raghavendran they would be getting to see. “They confirmed that he was travelling in the same coach as the suicide bomber after reviewing CCTV video recording from the train. The impact blew him into bits. It is likely he is brought in a bag and nobody would be allowed to see him,” said one of them.

But when the body did arrive, it was in a wooden coffin. The father C. Ganesan, mother Annapoorani and brother Chandrasekar were mobbed by waiting family members. Chandrasekar, who is a student in Berlin, was trying hard to retain his composure but could not help fight the evidently overwhelming grief.

At 4.25 pm, after the box was placed in the hall, two men with hammers started prying away at the coffin’s nails that was holding Raghavendran’s remnants inside because family members demanded to see their son one last time.

Vaishali had yet to step out of the room that she had walked into in the morning. Grief struck on one hand and a child to nurse on the other, she was being comforted by her mother-in-law to gather courage to come see the father to her child lie lifeless, something which she could not get herself to do for a long time.

At 4.40 pm, the men managed to remove the coffin top. The body was covered in a pearl white cloth which the family members were at a loss to remove because, of all things, they did not know on which side the Brussels authorities had placed Raghavendran’s head.

His uncle Raghav, who was talking to media persons on the outside, was hurriedly called back in and the cloth subsequently came off to gasps and wails from everyone in the room. There it lay, Raghavendran Ganesan’s head, placed strategically to one side, with very little of the body beneath it. As the day wore by, political representatives from the BJP, AIADMK and other parties made a quiet visit and expressed condolences to the bereaved family.