Flight 370: For this man, hope can never die
Narendran lost wife in tragedy, waits for new govt at Centre to hear their pleas
By : darshana ramdev
Update: 2014-12-03 08:11 GMT
Bengaluru:Nine months have passed since the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean, but authorities are still groping in the dark for answers. When K.S. Narendran bid his wife Chandrika Sharma goodbye that day as she set off to a United Nations conference, it never occurred to him that he may never see her again. Five Indians were on board that flight and three families have been left distraught, bereft, and in the dark about the fate of their loved ones.
Narendran and his 19-year-old daughter Meghna are still grappling with the uncertainty of it all even as the Indian government continues to maintain a resounding silence.
The Indian embassy in Kuala Lampur has reached out to him over the past nine months, but the Indian government has had little to say. "I have seen nothing and heard nothing from them," Narendra told Deccan Chronicle shortly after a workshop held here in the city. "Maybe it's not morbid enough or depraved enough. Maybe if thousands of people had been affected they would have done something. To be fair, this happened in thick of the election fever and we're still waiting for our new government to put its ear to the ground and hear the voices to which they must respond."
The probe into the whereabouts of the plane has been revived as witnesses have stepped forward claiming to have vital information. "I wish I knew," Narendran said. "The dominant theories are based on the fact that the flight took its course across the Indian Ocean, but there are many people who have come up with their own models. The possible flight paths have been identified but they are all based on a series of assumptions."
One part of the establishment, that's China, Malaysia and Australia, are "sold on the idea that they are searching in the right place - the seventh arc, which has been defined based on Inmarstat's data," he said, Theories are all very well and this particular case abounds with them.
Narendran and his daughter continue to wait for clarity, which is the only thing they are unable to find. "One is broadly in touch with all these assumptions, but the bottom line is that we don't know what is happening. We don't know any more than we did back in March."
The affected families, he said, do tend to believe that there is more to it than the general public is allowed to know. "Whatever the reasons might be, we can only speculate," he added. "The governments' reactions have only compounded that sense of disbelief. I, for one, am reasonably certain that what is being shared is incomplete. But I have no choice but to watch this unfold, helplessly ".
Meanwhile, for Narendran and his daughter, it is necessary to pull on and fulfill life's many obligations despite the tragedy that destroyed their lives. "My daughter has been coping well, she's very focused on her future and her studies. She and her mother were very close, though - Meghna looked upto her for emotional anchorage. She's able to bind her own sense of loss - on the face of it, she appears to be coping fairly well. We're trying to stay strong for each other."