THE mother of two boys who were killed in the Air India bombing off the West Cork coast almost 40 years ago has spoken of how one of her sons seemed reluctant to board the plane that day.
Addressing the gathering at the ceremony in Ahakista on Sunday, Padmini Turlapati was speaking at 8.12am – the very time the plane went down on June 23rd 1985, after a bomb exploded on Flight 182, travelling from Toronto to Delhi.
A total of 329 men, women and children died when the bomb exploded and a rescue operation was initiated off the Irish coast.
Padmini’s two boys had finished school for the summer and were travelling back to visit their grandparents in India, ready to proudly show them the various trophies they had won during the year, which were safely packed into their little bags.
‘We bid Sanjay (14) and Deepak (11) adieu at the airport,’ Padmini recalled. ‘Deepak went carefree, talking animatedly with friends, while Sanjay turned back at least 15 times to wave us goodbye.’ She said she also had a ‘transient sense of foreboding’ over the flight.
Deputy Commissioner of An Garda Siochána Shauna Coxon, a Toronto native, planting a wreath at the memorial on Sunday and, right, Sanjay Lazar, who lost both his parents and his baby sister, in the tragedy. (Photos: Tony McElhinney).
She said the next morning, at 6am in Toronto, she woke to the news that the plane had fallen into the Irish sea, with bodies taken to Cork. Deepak was never found.
‘While Deepak was one with the waters, Sanjay, on the other hand, surfaced with one shoe on, respectfully to assure us that it was all too real. We took his body to his maternal grandmother, who had reared him for four years. He was buried in Vijayawada, India,’ she said.
Padmini, a pediatrician in Canada, recalled how both boys had experienced dramatic births – Sanjay by emergency Caesarian, and Deepak, with last minute assistance by the attendant.
‘Sanjay (named by my sister Sujatha) means “foresight”. He grew up to be a tall, dark handsome gentle giant. I never heard him swear or shout,’ she recalled. ‘My mum had told him mothers should be treated reverently. He would always walk a step behind on my right side. Even when engrossed watching TV, this teenager would notice me and would carry the laundry down to the basement of the apartment. He became my conscience.’
Deepak, on the other hand, was constantly being urged to make his bed and tidy his room. ‘The last day was no exception,’ his mother recalled. ‘I found all his stuff shoved under his neatly-made bed.’
He described himself as ‘a born actor’, she said, and had stepped into a school play when a fellow student had fallen sick. A day after his death she received a cheque for $1,000 from a Canadian children’s TV show, which he had taken part in.
‘Deepak was mischievous, boisterous, loving and caring, and was loved by one and all. He loved and mimicked Michael Jackson – dancing to the song Thriller with abandon.’
Sanjay Lazar at the Air India Memorial during the 39th Commemoration service in Ahakista. (Photo: Tony McElhinney)
She remembered how, in 1984 and 1985, she had gone to Newfoundland to do a residency in pediatrics, leaving Sanjay and Deepak with their father in Toronto. She would talk on the phone with them, for an hour, once a week. ‘I only thought to do my residency and get my degree. I would get a good job and give my children a better life in the future – the future was not to be,’ she said.
They had stayed their last year with her husband Babu in Toronto. ‘The last year Babu spent with them became his salvation,’ she said.
She said she returned to Toronto that summer of 1985 to help them pack for their trip to see their grandparents. ‘I was too dumb to note that time and tide wait for no one … I was only thinking planning, shopping, sorting and making things easy for them. Well now I have all the time in the world to repent at leisure. What a cost.’
The ceremony was attended by various dignatories from both the Canadian, Indian, and Irish embassies and police forces, rescue service personnel, and friends of the families, who have been travelling to this memorial garden in Ahakista, since the tragedy.
Ceremonies took place at the same time in India, Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.
Canadian authorities have claimed that Sikh separatists, seeking retribution for the Indian army’s fatal 1984 raid of Punjab state’s Golden Temple, orchestrated the attacks. Only one person was convicted in the case, and served 30 years in prison, before his release in January 2016. Two others were acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges.
