Hyderabad, January 18: Twelve-year-old N Nichiketan did not know what was in store for him when his father asked him not to accompany him to Sabarimala. The boy did not heed his father’s advice and accompanied him on the pilgrimage for darshan of Lord Ayyappa. He did not return home. He was one of the five persons from the city who lost their lives in a ghastly road accident at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu in the early hours of Sunday.
Nichiketan was the only son of Venkata Hari, a Registered Medical Practioner (RMP), who has been visiting Sabarimala for eight years. Venkata Hari was not interested in taking his son along with him to Sabarimala in view of the strenuous travel involved in reaching the abode of Ayyappa. But Nichiketan, a Class VI student, was so obsessed with the idea of going to Sabarimala that his father was forced to accede. In the accident, Nichiketan died while Venkata Hari survived with fractures.
“Venkata Hari tried to tell his son about the difficulties to be faced in the journey to Sabarimala but Nichiketan was in no mood to listen because of his enthusiasm. He accompanied him without taking the `deeksha.’ It was unfortunate that he died in the accident,’’ Venkata hari’s brother N Vijay told Expresso.
Nichiketan was the son of Venkata Hari and Urmila who is a housewife.
Though the family received information in the morning itself they did not inform the news of the tragedy to Urmila fearing she would be upset. “She knew about the accident and was under the impression that he was under treatment like her husband,’’ Vijay said.
Nichiketan’s death is a loss not just to the couple but also to the entire family as he was the only successor in the family. “He was the only male child in the entire family and we have lost him,’’ a family member said in grief.
For the residents of Jammigadda, Sunday turned out to be a black day with five persons of the locality dying in the accident. The four others, Yadagiri, Vittal, Venkat Narayana and Shekar, all from different families belonged to the same locality. They were part of a 22-member group which went to Sabarimala on January 8 in a private vehicle and were heading to Tirupati when the accident took place.
The tale of another deceased, Yadagiri, was different as he himself decided on the road map for his death. “He changed his plan at the last minute and altered his mode of transport. He cancelled the train tickets that had been booked already and went in the `killer’ Swaraj Mazda. Some of the members of the pilgrimage were of the view that they could not cover all the pilgrim spots if they travelled by train,’’ Yadagiri’s friends Chandrashekar and Y Janatha Reddy said. Yadagiri was survived by wife Madhavi and two children, Jayanthi (6) and Jagadish (3).
It is reported that the hospital authorities in Tamil Nadu have not yet performed postmortem on the bodies delaying their transportation. “It may take a couple of days before the bodies are shifted,’’ Chandra Shekar added.
—Agencies