Indian siblings fly home from the UAE after aged father dies in Chennai

Dubai: Two Indian siblings were repatriated from the UAE on Monday after their aged father died in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, on Saturday.

Nirmala Venkatraman, a teacher, has thanked the Indian Consulate in Dubai after the mission accommodated her and her brother, V.D. Pani, on a special repatriation flight to Madurai under the Vande Bharat Mission, enabling them to conduct the last rites of their father.

Speaking to Gulf News over the phone, Nirmala said their father Vasudevan died, aged 81, a week after he suffered a stroke.

A retired joint director at India’s Directorate General of Training, Vasudevan was a qualified homeopathy and acupuncture practitioner and used to see select patients until recently after several years of active medical practise, his daughter said.

“Apart from me and my brother here, we have one more brother in the US. All of us registered for repatriation after our father fell sick and got admitted in ICU. My husband and daughter had also registered,” she said.

Even as emails were sent to the mission, Nirmala said her father showed some signs of recovery.

“Then we decided to wait for our turn as there was a long queue of people with emergencies,” said Nirmala who had recently taken up a job as head of a secondary school.

However, unfortunately, their father suffered two more strokes and passed away on Saturday morning.

Nirmala said the family then wanted to catch the first flight that would take them home for his cremation.

“We had lost our mother some years back. We wanted to be there for our father’s last rites.”

Nirmala said they were even ready to fly to Delhi and catch a connecting flight to Chennai.

However, when their situation was brought to the notice of Vipul, the Consul General of India in Dubai, on Sunday, the consulate officials helped them with seats on a flight to Madurai.

“Since it was a last-minute request, they could allow only two of us to travel. My husband and daughter had to stay back in Dubai.”

“We are grateful to the Consul General and Neelu Rohra, Consul, Commerce, and others who helped us fly out to be at our father’s cremation in time. I hope they will help my daughter also to fly down soon.”

The siblings, including the one who arrived from the US, performed the last rites of their father on Tuesday morning.

“We are sad that we could not see him before he passed away. The last time we all got together with him was last July after a gap of six years. We will cherish those memories forever,” said Nirmala.