Agonising wait at city airport

KOLKATA: It was the darkest hour for the Goenka family. A few weeks ago, they had bid their daughter Shilpa goodbye as she flew to Mumbai to join her job with a Japanese bank. On Sunday night, they were back at the airport, to bring her home in a coffin.
The family arrived at NSCBI Airport at 9.30 pm, with a half hour to go for the flight carrying Shilpa on her final journey.Shilpa’s father Rajesh and maternal uncle Mahendra Saraogi stood quietly to a side near the cargo section. Other relatives stood in a huddle. None could bring themselves to speak. Anguish was on every face.
The Jet Airways flight bringing the coffin to Kolkata got delayed by 15 minutes and landed at a quarter past 10. Some in the family could not hold back a sob. When the coffin was brought down from the plane, wails broke out. Shilpa’s father, still in severe trauma, did not dare go near the coffin. He stood far away, staring blankly with his head in his hands.
The airline and cargo staff quickly carried out the formalities and the body was released within 15 minutes. Family members took the coffin from the cargo handlers and carried it on their shoulders to the hearse. Rajesh Goenka had to be helped into his car. The solemn convoy rolled off for the Goenkas’ Lake Town residence.
When the body reached Lake Town at 11 pm, Shilpa’s friends and relatives — some 150 of them — could hold themselves no longer, Some fell on the coffin and wailed. A few collapsed. Her mother Neelam embraced the coffin and cried inconsolably. “We are shocked. We still cannot still believe that such a bright girl is gone,” said uncle Mahendra.
A few hours earlier, at 8 pm, Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee had visited the Goenkas’ home in Lake Town to console the grieving family. She stayed with them for half an hour.
At the airport, minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi and local Trinamool MLA Sujit Bose had stood by the family as they waited for the body. “We are here to help with the formalities of getting the body released so that the already traumatised family does not have to wait for long,” said Trivedi. He and Bose stayed with the family till Shilpa’s body was taken to the Nimtala crematorium late at night.