Signature bridge crash: Joyride a bitter pill for families

NEW DELHI: Satya Vijay

Shankaran

was on top of the world when he drove his new

birthday gift

to his

hostel parking

in

June

. He seldom allowed anyone to sit on or touch the new

KTM Duke 200 motorcycle

that his father had gifted him. Lately, however, he usually had his roommates, Chandra Shekhar and Ravinder, for company whenever he took the bike out for a spin.

Shankaran’s father, Satish Kumar, a physician at a government hospital in Gopalganj, Bihar, and his mother and brother, both private medical practitioners, are today haunted by Shekhar’s last Whatsapp photo showing him standing on the Signature Bridge beside the black-and-orange bike.

Their son and his 21-year-old roommate were on the bike when it hit a pole and they were thrown off the bridge to their death on Friday.

Avnesh Singh, Shankaran’s uncle, said that the family was happy that the 23-year-old was carrying on the family legacy as medical practitioners. “After arriving in Delhi for his studies, he bought a second-hand motorcycle. On completing his MBBS course and starting his internship, his father gifted him the KTM,” said Singh. “We were expecting good things from him and he was an idol for his younger brother.”

Shankaran had finishing his higher secondary education from DAV Public School in Ranchi, and then come to Delhi for a medical degree at Hindu Rao Medical College. After graduating, he began interning at Bada Hindu Rao Hospital. His colleagues report that he was a popular student in college.

Shekhar, who was in his second year at Hindu Rao, had been denied a motorcycle by his father, Shiv Narayan Sharma, a teacher at an MCD school in Pushp Vihar. “I was always against him riding a bike for fear of accidents and he had promised never to ride one without my permission,” Sharma said, tragically stunned by the irony.

Besides being good in studies, Shekhar was also a state-level volleyball and badminton player and proficient in yoga too, remembered family friend Manoj Chaudhary.

Brother Arvind said Shekhar had come home to south Delhi’s Devli on Thursday evening, but decided to go out with friends late at night. “I actually forced him to stay home and leave only on Friday. I overheard a phone call and feared he and his friends were going for a bike ride somewhere,” said Arvind.

Early on Friday morning, the medical student sneaked out of his home and reached his hostel where he had breakfast and left for the ride with Shankaran. Arvind mournfully recalled, “Shekhar had blocked us on Whatsapp because we kept scolding him for riding his roommate’s motorbike. I did not feel good about him speeding around like that on the two-wheeler. As feared, the bike took his life.”