More than five decades after he went missing in an air crash at Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh, Elanthoor village in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district is getting ready to welcome the mortal remains of Thomas Cherian, a craftsman in the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers of the Indian Army and bury him near the tombs of his late parents OM Thomas and Eliyamma.
It was on February 7 1968 that the then Soviet Union made AN-12 transport aircraft went missing somewhere near Rohtang Pass while it was carrying 102 troops from Chandigarh to Leh.
The twin-engine aircraft with the entire passengers perished in the snowy slopes of Rohtang Pass, nearly 4000 meters above sea level. Various units of the Indian Army have been searching for the remains of the aircraft and the passengers since then.
Cherian’s siblings, Thomas Varghese, Thomas Thomas and Mary Thomas, are now in a dilemma. Should they cry, or be happy, over the news that their elder brother, who would have turned 78 had he been alive, is coming home.
“There was not a single day, even in happiness and sorrow, he was away from our memories. It was on February 8 or 9, 1968, that our father came home with a newspaper which had reported that an aircraft belonging to the Air Force had gone missing, and our brother was one of the travelers in the flight,” Thomas Thomas, one of the younger brothers, told The Pioneer.
It took another couple of days for the family to get an official communication from the EME Center about Cheriyan’s death. “Our parents were shattered over the news. Ours is a close-knit family and we had a strong bond. My mother who breathed her last in 1998 had always hoped that Achayan (Malayalam for elder brother) would come home one day,” Mary Thomas said. She was just 12 years old when she saw Cheriyan for the last time.
Thomas Cheriyan was the second son in the family of five. The elder brother late Thomas Mathew too had served the defense forces and later joined the Forest Department of Kerala. The two brothers and Mary Thomas consider the tracing of the remains of Cheriyan as a “miracle and gift from God Almighty”.
“We are choked with emotions of all kinds. God in Heaven has heard our prayers and my brother can have his eternal sleep along with our parents in the family tomb at the village church,” Mary said, while Thomas Varghese sat nearby unable to speak even a word.
Both Thomas Thomas and Mary expressed their gratitude to the Center for providing family pension to their mother Eliyamma till her last. “The only sorrow is that we do not have a single picture of our brother, and are dependent on the Army headquarters for retrieving a picture,” Mary said, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
The people of Pathanamthitta were always enthusiastic about joining the Defense Forces, the men as soldiers and women as nurses. Many Malayalam short stories and novels have had Pathanamthitta and the Indian Army as the background.
For the young and adventurous from the region which had no industries or major business establishments till the 1970s, the Indian Army was a major employment provider before the West Asian gates opened its floodgates.
The East Odalil family has been busy since Monday evening making arrangements for Cheriyan’s last journey. His mortal remains are expected to reach home this weekend.
Cheriyan after completing his pre-university course (equivalent to modern day class 12th) joined the Corps of EME when he was hardly 18. He laid down his life for the nation when he had turned 22.
Once the body is brought back to Elanthoor, Cherian’s name would figure in the record books for the feat of Dogra Scouts of the Indian Army and Tiranga Mountain Rescue for recovering a soldier after 56 years of search mission. Till date only nine bodies out of the 102 passengers who were in the ill-fated aircraft could be retrieved.
