The once-bustling household of Om and Savita Awadhiya in Umaria, Madhya Pradesh, seems to have lost its heartbeat. The family dog, Daisy, who had been a small puppy when Aneesh Awadhiya brought her home, is still waiting for his return. “If you say, ‘Lucky dada is coming back’, Daisy jumps up, runs out and starts looking for him,” says Savita, fighting back tears. The children in the family, about whom Aneesh had made plans for education in Pune and abroad, have lost a big brother, guide and role model.
IT engineer Aneesh, 24, had been out for an impromptu dinner at a restaurant in Kalyani Nagar with three friends on the night of May 18-19. On the way back, his motorbike was hit by a Porsche being driven by a drunk 17-year-old. While Ashwini Koshta, who was on the bike, died on impact, Aneesh was moved to a hospital but died soon after.
Now, each day feels like a burden for Aneesh’s parents, who can’t imagine how the rest of their lives will unfold. “There is nothing more to do than to keep remembering our ‘bachcha’. What more can we do? This has been such a heavy loss that words fail me. He was everything to us,” says Om. They cling to snatches of old conversations with their elder son as memories come flooding.
“We used to call him Lucky. He used to call me Maatey. He had come home on May 1 as May 6 was our 25th wedding anniversary. Aneesh had planned for his father and me to visit Shirdi for blessings. We left on May 4. He was supposed to stay at home but he received a call from his office that he was to go to Dubai on May 9. He left home on May 5. I wonder, what if I had not gone to Shirdi? I could have spent some more days with my child,” says Savita.
Aneesh returned from Dubai and told his mother he would soon come home with all the chocolates and dates that he had bought. “We spoke on May 16 and 17. On the night of May 18-19, the accident took place. I still have the voice messages he had sent me. There is not a day that I do not shed tears for him,” says Savita.
The sense of loss extends to Aneesh’s uncle, who had invested Rs 30-40 lakh to open a sweet shop a month before the accident. Crushed by Aneesh’s death, he has closed down the business. “They were very close from the time Aneesh was a baby. He cannot come to terms with Aneesh’s death,” says Om.
As the first anniversary of the accident comes close, his parents are convinced that the government should become more strict about drunk driving. “Think about it — a 17-year-eight-month-old boy spends a lot of money drinking and then starts driving and kills two people on the road. There should be an awareness campaign against such acts and to remember the victims. It would be helpful if the government put up billboards in Pune with messages against drinking and driving on May 19,” says Om.
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He adds that, weeks after the Porsche crash, a BMW accident took place in Mumbai where the driver was allegedly drunk. In this case, a woman was killed and her husband injured. “The authorities should have taken a lesson from the Porsche case. If this case had been acted upon immediately, other drivers would have been afraid,” says Om.
Savita says the country needs a law by which parents who give keys of cars to their minor children are also punished. “We are confronting a deep loss. Aur kisi bachhe ki jaan na jaye, aur kisi ma ki god na ujrey. If a minor commits a crime and is not punished like an adult, how will he ever learn? How will others learn? I feel that the accused should be treated like an adult,” says Savita.
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