BENGALURU: A few weeks ago, a very proud father went to the airport to see Drithi off as she took wings to fly solo to study Art & Design at New York prestigious Parsons’ School of Design.
A warm kiss on her forehead being the searing image imprinted in the minds of family friends who accompanied them on that night’s trip.
On Saturday, as she made the return trip to Bengaluru, alone in her grief on the long 24-hour journey, a stricken and stunned Drithi could only stare at her father Puneeth Rajkumar’s body in a glass box without uttering a word, eyes welling up in disbelief. Flanked by her mother Ashwini and younger sister Vanditha, she tried to move closer to her dad and when other family members realized that she wanted to touch him one last time again, they lifted the lid of the glass casket. As she placed her hand on her dad’s head, hundreds of family members, film personalities and die-hard fans wept.
“While we family members were consoling each other out here, Drithi was there alone trying to come to terms with the tragedy that had struck them. Given the problems related to pandemic-related travel logistics, we thought she may not be able to make it to see her dad. But she did join in the moments of grief,” a Sandalwood actor associated with the Rajkumar family said.
She took the first available flight out of New York and reached Delhi on Saturday afternoon. Protocol officials at Karnataka Bhavan in Delhi ensured that her security clearances were done quickly so that she reached Bengaluru by evening. Sources said she went to her residence before coming to Kanteerava Stadium flanked by her mother and sister.
After touching her dad, she turned back to her mother and hugged her tightly as tears rolled down. The sisters were inconsolable as they held onto their weeping mother. Elder cousins Vinay Rajkumar and Guru Rajkumar consoled them while uncles Shivarajkumar and Sri Murali too hugged them.
Both the sisters were seen leaning their heads on their mother while fans continued to pay their respects to their favourite star. A lensman, who tried to capture that moment of grief, almost broke down saying: “That scene of them together is difficult to erase from memory.”
