Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 45

THE JOURNEY
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My brother Arvind died under incredible circumstances... It shattered me...
Towards the end of August 1950, I was planning to tour Europe with my wife Bhagwati. Arvind, who was studying engineering at Lowel College in Boston, USA, had come down for a holiday. He asked me if he could join us as he had not been to Europe before. I said yes, and got him a ticket on the same TWA flight as Bhagwati and I. Soon after, I happened to read somewhere that during the war Churchill and Eden never travelled together so that, if there were to be a mishap, one of them would be alive. So I thought of flying to London with Bhagwati a day earlier. Arvind was to fly directly to Paris the next day, where our agent Maurice Devilder would receive him and take him to his plush apartment at Arc de Triumph and after showing him round Paris, put him on a night ferrytrain to London. Ba (my mother) was upset with the change in schedule. She was unhappy because she felt since Arvind did not speak French, he would be handicapped in Paris. I tried to reason with her saying Devilder would receive him at the airport in Paris and I would be there to receive him at London's Waterloo Station. But Ba did not reconcile. As bad luck would have it, the move proved fatal. In London, as I was coming out of the underground station, Bank, I bought a newspaper and was stunned to read that a Paris-bound TWA aircraft had crashed over Cairo the previous day and all the 55 persons on board had died! I could not bear the thought that Arvind was on that flight! Totally shattered, I rushed back to Grosvenor House on Park Lane, where Bhagwati and I were staying, and rang up Bapaji and asked him if I should rush to Cairo. He said my going to Cairo was of no use as there would be nothing left there. "Complete your work and come back home by ship," he said. "From now on, you won't travel by air." I could never stay at Grosvenor House again.
My mother held me responsible for Arvind's death, although if we had flown by the same TWA flight as per the original plan all three of us would have been dead! She continued to sulk.One day I told Bapaji that I would like to shift out with Bhagwati. Bapaji gave in to my request; and reluctantly, Bhagwati and
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again -- Bryant