Destiny: Destiny keeps on playing hide and seek and all types of subtle games, during all the ups and downs and twists and turns of life. The building blocks of life are delicately connected with some invisible threads linked to destiny, which make life vulnerable and sometimes beyond slightest possibilities of hope, as and when some of the threads are under strain. Mohan had an excellent run during his opening year at UC Berkeley and he was happily poised for a satisfying career, gradually unfolding ahead of him. That was the time, when something happened somewhere and all hells broke down and the clocks stopped ticking.
Telegram from USA: We got a telegram from USA on 30 May 1971, informing us that our son Mohan had met with an automobile accident. The message was picked up by a signaller at the central telephone facility of Jodhpur, who delivered it to us. Those were the times, when we did not have a telephone at our residence and there were no direct telephone links between Jodhpur and USA. A telephone call from Jodhpur to USA was routed from Jodhpur to Delhi or Bombay and from there to London and thereafter from London to USA. Normally, if a call was booked, it took 24 hours to 48 hours for the call to go through. I did not have a passport and visa for entry in USA. Moreover, there was no passport office at Jodhpur or anywhere in Rajasthan at that time. Incidentally, I had to visit USA for a period of three months from July 1971, under a fellowship programme of National Science Foundation and US Aid for International Delvelopment and my application for the issue of a passport was pending with Regional Passport office at Delhi. As such, there was no time to think and I took the evening train to Delhi on 31 May 1971. The regional passport officer at Delhi helped me in getting the passport on the morning of 1 June 1971 and thereafter, Mr Barnes, Head of USAID at US Embassy at Delhi helped me in stamping the US Entry Visa on my passport. Mr Barnes also gave to me a packet of relevent health certificates and financial clearance papers to be delivered by me to the immigration officer, at the time of first entry in USA. As such, hoping against hope, I found myself on the British Airways Flight to London in the early hours of the morning of 2 June 1971, touching Heathrow Airport in the morning of 2 June 1971. Thereafter, an Air Canada Flight took me from London to Toronto in the evening of 2 June 1971. My brothers, Jai Narain, Krishan and Hari met me at the airport and we spent the night at Galt in Canada.
Santa Rosa: Six students had come from Los Angeles to Berkeley for an excursion trip to the north. They picked up Mohan from Berkeley on 29 May 1971 and crossed Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco for a drive to the north on highway 101, through the cliffs and hilly areas along the coast line of Pacific Ocean. The car in which they were moving was a second hand car.
It was a five seater car with five seat belts. The number of occupants was seven with three students in the front and four students in the rear. The driver was also one of the students, who was perhaps the owner of the car. Mohan was occupying one of the middle seats in the rear. After driving for about thirty miles, the driver lost control and the car collided head on with other cars. The car became a wreckage and was spotted by the air patrol. The entrapped students were picked up and admitted in the community hospital at Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is a flourishing town in Sonoma County of California about 40 miles from San Francisco and the place of accident was about 10 miles from Santa Rosa.
Our trip to Santa Rosa: In the morning of 3 June 1971, I was on the flight to San Francisco with my brother Jai Narain. After touching down at San Francisco, Jai Narain hired a rental car, and we drove straight to the Community Hospital of Sonoma County at Santa Rosa. The hospital was located in an isolated place on a hillock, away from the hubbub of the city. The six students accompanying Mohan had multiple fractures in all parts of the body and they were placed in one common ward. It was a touching scene to see the young boys lying on beds with hands, feet and other parts of the body hanging up in bandages. Mohan was placed separately in the intensive care unit. He had suffered head injuries and although he did not have any physical injuries at any part of the body, all physical parts of his body had ceased to function. He could not move his hands, feet or body and was placed on life support system. We had a feeling that he was not in a coma, as he looked at us and his eyelids moved, as and when we moved. It seemed to us, that, he wanted to talk, but, his speech was gone. Jai Narain talked to the attending medical personnel and looked to the record of investigations and treatment and after staying there for sometime, we moved to the main street of the city, where we finalized a room in a motel for my stay at Santa Rosa for some weeks. Thereafter, Jainarain drove back to San Francisco and took the flight for Toronto in the evening of 3 June 1971.
Last days of Mohan: I used to visit Mohan in the hospital for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening every day. The attending medical staff used to brief me about his health, investigations and treatment and I was told, that, as soon as his condition improved, he will be shifted to Berkeley. There was a regular stream of known people coming from Berkeley for visiting Mohan. The students and some members of faculty of UC Berkeley, who were associated with Mohan, visited him in the hospital on week ends. Everybody seemed to be concerned about him. Jai Narain used to call me on phone at 6 PM everyday and I used to brief him about the investigations, general medical condition and other developments. As the days kept rolling, his condition looked to be stable and there were talks about shifting him to San Francisco or Berkeley. However, it seems that the condition of Mohan was gradually deteriorating and he finally, breathed his last at 3.05 AM on 16 June 1971. The cause of his death was subdural and interstitial hemorrhage of brain. After necessary formalities, the hospital transferred the body of Mohan to Santa Rosa Memorial Park, where he was cremated on 17 June 1971. Some of his known people and friends from Berkeley, San Francisco and Santa Rosa joined us during the cremation. I left Santa Rosa on the same day, and took the return flight to India with a brief stopover at Toronto.
Attachments: 1. Letter dated 17 June 1971 written by Prof RM White, Vice Chairman, of graduate student affairs of the Departnent of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California at Berkeley.
- Letter dated 18 June 1971 written by Prof Charles K Birdsal, who was major field advisor of Mohan in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California at Berkeley.