Onkar Singh

Time heals all wounds, erases all scars. Or so they say, the pundits.

Spend five minutes with Chander Mohan Katyal and your eyes, your ears, will tell you that the pundits lie.

Time has had 365 days to work on Chander Mohan Katyal -- yet the tracks gouged through his weathered face by scalding hot tears are, today, clearer, deeper, than they were on the day he heard of the death of his son, Rupin.

How can Time heal? When every waking minute of every waking day brings memories and every memory triggers anew the wellspring of grief?

Chander Mohan Katyal does not like the media. "Why are you people interested in us?" he demands."'Why do you want to write about our tragedy?"

There is a glint in his eye -- the light refracts off the tears that Chander Mohan holds back, unwilling to make his private grief into a public spectacle.

"Will your words bring my son back to me?"

The question is branded, as though with a hot iron, into the air that surrounds us. There is, in that one hushed question, a wealth of helplessness. The helplessness of a father struggling to comprehend why Fate chose to amputate the most flourishing branch of his family tree. And the helplessness, too, of the journalist who seeks to make sense of the senselessness that we call Life.

Chander Mohan Katyal was, once, just 364 days ago, a happy man. His only son Rupin had completed his degree in electronic engineering and the future beckoned. With great difficulty, Chander Mohan persuaded his son to take over the family business. Prakash Katyal and Company, Chander Mohan reminded his educated son, was founded by his grandfather. It was family, it was tradition -- and it was time for the torch to be passed on to the next generation.

Rupin Katyal finally fell in with his father's wishes. That was in 1996. By 1999, Rupin had more than doubled the turnover and, in the process, spread the reach of the business far beyond the boundaries his grandfather and father had envisaged.

And then came December 24. The day that Rupin died -- and the future of the Katyal family died with him.

Once, the Katyal family's conversations were laced with dreams, hopes, ambitions. Now, there is grief, bitterness and a whole host of unanswered questions beating against the brain.

"Captain Devi Sharan might be a hero for others. He might get medals. But what did he do to save my son? Why he could not take the aircraft a little beyond the runway and tell the hijackers that it was not possible to take off as the aircraft was stuck in mud or that was on uneven surface?"

"For 70 minutes the aircraft was on the runway of Rajasansi airport (in Amritsar). What was the government doing? The hijackers would have released all hostages if they had been allowed to take the plane where they wanted to -- why didn't they agree to that? Eventually, the government fulfilled the demands of the hijackers -- so why didn't they think of it then, before it was too late? Today my son is dead and they call it destiny. What destiny is it, that makes me suffer because others committed blunder after blunder?"

"When I met US President Bill Clinton in March, I asked him why no action was taken against the official in Lahore airport who did not allow Devi Sharan to offload the injured passengers, even though the hijackers had offered to allowed them to do so?"

"Look at Pervez Musharaf, he deposed Nawaz Sharif and sent him to jail for life because Sharif had hijacked his plane. But the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane, the killers of my son, are roaming freely in Pakistan. What has Musharaf done about it?"

"When I met Clinton, I realised here was the president of another country, sharing my grief with me. But then, something else also occurred to me -- why is it that, till that day, neither the President nor the prime minister of my own country had shared my grief? Why is it that neither of them even issued a media statement of condolence? Wouldn't a word, some sympathy, from them have boosted my morale?"

The words -- angry, bitter, helpless -- wash over me in a flood. I examine each question, desperately hoping to find an answer, any answer, that will help take the edge off his year-old grief -- but there are none to be found.

I didn't have any answers. Bill Clinton didn't have any. Neither, presumably, does Musharaf. Or President Narayanan. Or Prime Minister Vajpayee.

Chander Mohan Katyal has, thus, had to rely on himself to examine closely the cloud of his grief, seeking silver linings to comfort himself.

"More than 10,000 people from all over the country have written to me. People who don't know me, people who don't know my son. But they have written, telling me of their sorrow and sympathy and support. So what if the President and prime minister haven't written? The people write to me and that matters."

"(Minister of State for Civil Aviation) Chaman Lal Gupta came for my son's funeral. He was there for the bhog ceremony as well. And when the hijackers released the hostages, he told them they were alive because of my son's sacrifice."

The cynical might see those words as nothing more than the usual blather of a rent-a-quote politician. But for a grief-stricken father, those words were, in a sense, a validation. His son was dead, but others were alive because of that -- some small salve, that, for a sorely bruised heart.

"Shekhar Ghose (director, human resources, Indian Airlines) and Sunil Arora (its CMD) were very nice to us. Both of them came for the funeral. They also gave my Rachna (Rupin Katyal's widow) a job in Indian Airlines."

They are few, those silver linings. Yet they are all that Chander Mohan has. And he tries to make the most of them, recounting in great detail the visits of Ghose and Arora and Chaman Lal Gupta and even Minister for Civil Aviation Sharad Yadav.

And then there is Rachna. For Chander Mohan Katyal, his young daughter-in-law is both the living, breathing symbol of his loss and his main source of solace.

"She is coping. Her job keeps her busy all day. Then in the evening, she goes for her classes, she is doing her Master's in Business Administration. It hasn't been easy for her since Rupin's death, but she is coping."

'Coping' just about describes Chander Mohan Katyal as well. Time and again, as he speaks to me, his eyes assume a faraway expression. And the tears come, pouring down those weathered features in seemingly endless fashion. At those times, it is as if the ageing Katyal is in some faraway place where I may not follow.

And then he comes back, and talks some more. And cries some more.

It is a lonely, all-consuming grief, is Chander Mohan Katyal's. There is his wife, Rupin's mother, at home nursing her own sorrow. A daughter, Rupin's sister, in Australia with her husband, living on memories of her brother. A daughter-in-law, seeking to dull grief by immersing herself in the minutiae of work and study.

And there is Chander Mohan Katyal -- a man aged by Time and grief, sitting in his electrical equipment shop. With customers for occasional distraction, and grief for constant company.

And then, every once in a while, a visitor happens along.

"Till today, they come, Rupin's old clients, people who came to know him while he was in charge of the family business. They talk to me about him, about how good and smart he was. And then they cry."

Series Design: Dominic Xavier

The Hijack: One Year On