Elder brother Deepak Divakaran who flew into the city at 6.25 pm bringing back the body of his younger brother from Delhi, and his wife Pooja who was anxiously waiting for his parents instead found themselves staring at Shobha's body. Husband M K Divakaran who followed the ambulance that carried his wife broke down upon reaching their Dehu Road residence.

A crowd of some 2,000 people had gathered near their bungalow at Vikas Nagar, Kivle. Relatives and friends could not muster enough courage to break the news of Shobha's death to Deepak and Pooja. They sobbed even as they tried to comfortPooja who sat weeping in a corner. The bodies of both Shobha and son Subak were taken to the open ground where a shamiana had been erected. They were cremated later in the night.

Struck by the blow of having lost their youngest son in a road accident at Chandigarh, the bereaved parents Shobha and M K Divakaran who hail from Kerala along with their 25-year-old son Deepak had flown to Chandigarh to get his body on Monday afternoon. Due to procedural delay, his body could not be flown in on Tuesday night.

After making arrangements to send the body on a Delhi-Pune Indian Airlines flight with their eldest son Deepak, Shobha and her husband took the Delhi-Mumbai (IA) flight this morning. Shobha, employed at Dehu Ordnance Depot at Talegaon, died on board the flight. According to her neighbours, U P Dinesh and Jiji Phillips, Shobha was a chronic patient of blood pressure and was taking treatment at the Lokmanya hospital at Chinchwad.

Subak and his father M K Divakaran had set up a cement block manufacturingunit at Chandigarh and were supplying the blocks to the Birla group of companies. M K Divakaran was formerly employed at DOD when he took voluntary retirement and went to Muscat. He returned to India six years ago and recently started the business. Subak, a regular footballer with the Indrayani Sports Club was in Pune some eight-ten days before returning to Chandigarh. He was run over by a truck on Monday at Nalagadh near Ambala in Chandigarh.

The Birla group broke the sad news to Deepak on Monday following which he rushed to Chandigarh with his mother Shobha. His father was on his way back to Pune on the Jammu Tawi Express. He was intercepted at Gwalior station and returned to Chandigarh where the post-mortem was conducted.

Shobha and M K Divakaran decided to take the morning Delhi-Mumbai flight while Deepak took the Delhi-Pune flight in the evening. Shobha according to airport officials suddenly took ill on board the flight.

Three doctors on board the flight attended to her even as the commanderinformed Mumbai airport about the need for medical assistance on arrival. She was, however, declared dead when the flight landed. Arrangements were made to send the body by road from Mumbai to Pune.

Deepak who still had to come to terms with the shock of his brother's death was unaware that his mother had passed away when he landed in Pune at 6.25 pm. His neighbours, T T Verghese and Jiji Phillips, were at a loss for words and could not break the news of his mother's death. Deepak completed the formalities at the airport and took his brother back to their home in a military vehicle given by the DOD when the suffering lot were shell-shocked to receive the body of their mother.