Copyright thehindu
An uneasy silence hangs over the house of Edigi Yellaiah. It shatters only when visitors walk in to console him, triggering fresh bouts of crying. His three daughters — Thanusha, 22, Sai Priya, 20, and Nandini, 18 — were among the 19 people killed on Monday morning when a speeding gravel-laden lorry crashed into the TSRTC bus they were travelling in, near Mirjaguda, close to Chevella on the outskirts of Hyderabad. By night, their funeral was conducted at Yellaiah’s native place, Perkampally of Tandoor in Vikarabad district, as the entire village and people from surrounding areas gathered and wept. Yellaiah is a driver and owner of a seven-seater passenger vehicle which he rents out. He lives in Tandoor town. Until 6.15 a.m. on Monday, when he dropped his three daughters at the Tandoor bus stand to board a Hyderabad-bound bus, everything felt normal. Just on October 17, he had performed the marriage of his eldest daughter, Anusha. Thanusha, an MBA final-year student, and Priya and Nandini, who were pursuing their final and first years of graduation, were all studying at Koti Women’s College in Hyderabad. They had come home recently, carrying happy memories from their elder sister’s wedding. “Why did God punish me like this, taking away all three at once,” questions Yellaiah, breaking down each time someone tries to console him. “They bought new clothes for me for the wedding and made me wear them. They even did my make-up, saying I should look good on that day,” he says, his voice choking. After attending their sister’s wedding, the trio had returned to Hyderabad for college but returned to Tandoor again to attend a cousin’s wedding on October 30. “They were supposed to come with us to Gulbarga for the cousin’s reception. But they chose to return to Hyderabad saying they had exams,” recalls their cousin, Suresh, who also stays in Tandoor. “If I had forced them to come along, they would have been alive,” he says. The sisters had planned to leave for Hyderabad on Sunday night, but their mother advised them to travel on Monday morning instead. “I dropped them at the bus stand one after the other on my bike,” says Yellaiah. “They left smiling in the morning and by evening, they returned home dead.” His son Murali, a Class 10 student, and wife Vithalabai are still in shock. After the police completed the autopsy, the bodies were shifted to Perkampally, where the final rites were performed by night.
