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On May 28, 1968, 02:44 hours, seven minutes after take-off, Garuda Airlines’ Convair CV-990 PK-GJA Pajajaran, flying from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Bombay, crashed, 37 kms north of Bombay at the village of Bilalpada, Nalasopara.  All passengers and crew perished.  Not a single body was retrieved, only a few limbs. The four engines recovered were deemed to be working at the time of the crash. The black box was never found. The cause of the crash is unknown to date.
On board was my grandfather, the brilliant and dedicated engineer, Khurshed F. Antia. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing my mother Thrity found at the accident site was his prayer book, "a mute testimony to the piety of this noble man,” as remarked D. D. Jangalwala, a colleague at the BB&CI (Bombay, Baroda and Central India) Railway. Grandfather always prayed at take-off, white kerchief on head. He was on his way to Madrid to attend a conference of the Federation Internationale de la Precontrainte as the official delegate of India and Asia. He had made a last minute change in flights to avoid transiting Beirut. 
Sitting under a half-charred, half-green tree at the edge of the 30 x 100 ft crater created by the crash, my mother was shown pieces of anatomy to identify. A hand with wedding ring appeared familiar.  Turned out to be that of a Dutch national who had just attended the laying of the foundation for the Moral Re-Armament building in Panchgani. My mother never did find any of his remains. Writing this, I renew my admiration for her.  She must have been all of 31 at the time and had already been through a lot in life. 
Grandfather was born in Navsari on December 10, 1904, the fifth child of Framroz Antia and Dhunmai Tata. Academically brilliant and a fine sportsman, his principal at St Xavier’s College, Calcutta, entreated the family to send the talented lad abroad.  He completed his BSc (Engg), Engineering Diploma and MSc (Engg) from Kings College, University of London, also winning its full hockey colors! 
Enroute to Nainital four years ago I visited the Moradabad cemetery and uncovered the forest-claimed-grave of my great-grandfather Framroz, who was general manager of a cotton mill there. He fell ill and passed away whilst his son, Khurshed, was appearing for his final BSc exam. This tragic news was withheld by the family until after the exam so that Khurshed could complete his papers undisturbed!
Trained in railway engineering on the British Railways, Khurshed returned to work on the BNR (Bengal Nagpur Railway); the BB&CI and the Indian Railway Board for several years.  During World War II he was in charge of the Railway Civil Defence works and the construction of a number of urgent military depots. The advent of Independence saw him in the Delhi Railway Board in charge of the Ministry of Railway’s Central Standards Office, Structural and Civil Engineering Branches in Delhi and Simla.  In 1952 he joined the Concrete Association of India as its technical controller and was executive head in the Associated Cement Companies. Subsequently he established the Bombay division of M. N. Dastur and Company Private Limited, consulting engineers to the Ministry of Steel and Mines.  He had also been appointed president of The Institution of Engineers (India).
Khurshed’s pioneering work was in introducing welded steel girders on the subcontinent and in designing and introducing prestressed con­crete bridges in India, recognized as being the first of its kind in the world for heavy railway loading. And of some relevance today, in 1946 he formulated "a scheme for an underground railway for interconnection of existing tracks at Churchgate and Victoria Terminus Stations and operation for inner and outer circle trains similar to those in London,” as reported in the Engineering Times, January 1, 1968.
He was awarded the Railway Board’s gold medal on two occasions for his papers.  His books became standard texts and reference works for engineering students. Most notably, Railway Track, first published in 1945, was in its fifth edition the year of his death and is still recommended reading in transportation engineering. He was technical editor of the Indian Concrete Journal and Journal of the Permanent Way Institution for several years. "A charming conversationalist he made the abstruse topics of engineering interesting and easy to understand to a layman,” noted a write-up in the Evening News of India of September 23, 1966.
He championed ‘Technological Swaraj’ and the very last article written only a day before his death was on the subject. He condemned as folly the needless harnessing of foreign talent when indigenous potential was left untapped.  One of his proposals aimed at countering unemployment in the engineering profession. "His touching simplicity, youthful enthusiasm and a capacity to adapt the progress of science to practical ends are his most striking virtues,” stated the newsletter of The Indian Roads and Transport Development Association of April 16, 1968.
In 1969 the Institution of Engineers established a memorial prize in his memory for the best engineering paper published in their journal. There were several entries when I first Googled my grandfather’s name in 2009.  There was also the Welsh Highland Railway (WHR) site which had published his 1924/5 student treatise, a valuable resource for the railways’ restoration.  We still had the original box-camera-clicked pictures which accompanied the treatise.  My sisters rode the restored railway as guests of the WHR and were shown the original treatise with much reverence.
Fellow of the National Institute of Science of India, the Permanent Way Institute London, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a member of the Institution of Structural Engineers London, grandfather was posthumously awarded Fellowship of The Indian Stan­dards Institution in recognition of his distinguished services and valuable contribution to the promotion of standardization.
He was associated with The Indian Roads Congress, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the International Association of Bridges and Structural Engineering.  He was vice president of the International Federation on Prestressed Concrete and at its 1966 conference in Paris was elected a member of its executive committee, representing India and Asia at the World Federation of Engineering Organisations sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Those who worked with him found him to be "very exacting, a hard driving taskmaster but at the same time humane, just and appreciative. He would drive himself more than he would drive others at the appointed task. Whenever an emergency arose Mr Antia was the automatic first choice to overcome it… He was well-known for getting things done in a hurry… His zeal for work, his devotion to duty, his sincerity and kindness have left a deep impression on all those who knew him.”
My almost 10-year-old mind would often imagine him making his way home to us.  We spent only a few years together. Long enough for him to teach us our prayers and enthrall us with some imaginative stories punctuated by hair-framed-ear-wiggling stunts. Their drama enhanced when narrated by the light of hissing phaanas (pressured paraffin) lanterns in his beloved Matheran. He was a disciplinarian. Life’s tips would be doled out constantly. When irritated, he would exclaim in exasperation "sacrementadilapomditafreta” much to the delight of his nieces. Deeply committed as a husband and a father his letters home were full of love, longing and poetry.   
The ill-fated crash occurred near three places of historic and religious importance:  The salt pans off Nalasopara, the historic port through which Buddhism first travelled East before the Christian era, and some speculate was the ‘distant Ophir’ in John Masefield’s poem Cargoes.  The 17th century Portuguese Bassein Fort captured by the Marathas in 1738 is a few kilometers away and the Kanheri Caves are to the south. Years later on a pilgrimage to the crash site, my grandmother asked us to look for his wedding ring.  We found bits of seat belt still embedded in the soil and the realization that in the end, all that remains is love… and his presence manifests in a thousand different ways!