Bride-to-be wanted to seek Lord's blessings, loses parents in Hirakhand train mishap

BHUBANESWAR: Accompanied by her parents, Tejeswari Pandit, 22, was on her way to Jagannath temple in Puri to give her wedding invite card to the Lord, which many in Odisha do. Her dream stands shattered as her parents died in the Saturday night Hirakhand train mishap. Tejeswari’s arranged marriage plan for March 3 now stands cancelled.
She along with her father Ramprasad Pandit, 54, and mother Jashoda, 45, from Rayagada had boarded the train to Bhubaneswar from where they would have gone Puri.But her father and mother died in the train tragedy.
Ramprasad, originally belongs to Gunupur, was staying with his family at Rayagada. He was working as a head clerk at the office of the assistant registrar of cooperative society in Rayagada. He had finalized the date of the marriage of her daughter and was happy for this, said a relative of the deceased.
Tejeswari, a graduate, was admitted at a hospital in Parvathipuram in Andhra Pradesh for treatment after the accident. She was asking everybody in the hospital about her parents. When she knew about the death of her father and mother, she wept inconsolably. As she had received minor injury, doctors discharged her from the hospital after treatment.
She said they had boarded the train at around 10.40 pm at Rayagada. They had reserved their seats in sleeper class (S8 coach) of the train, which derailed along with other eight coaches. “After around 30 minutes of the journey, suddenly we heard a loud sound and then it started shaking miserably. “We couldn’t figure out what was happening that time and suddenly the train bogies derailed. Just within 30 minutes after boarding the train, I lost my parents,” she lamented.
Brother and son of deceased Ramprasad, who were waiting outside the district headquarters hospital at Rayagada to receive bodies after postmortem, were crying inconsolably. A pal of gloom prevailed in the hospital and locals couldn’t control their emotions.
“My parents were so happy and had planned for the two-day visit to Puri, but train derailment snatched our happiness from us,” said the inconsolable son Kanha while waiting outside the hospital.