MH370: The story of Prahlad and Kranti

Prahlad Shirsath and wife Kranti, 44, have been married for 17 years but they have been living apart for the past three years. Prahlad got an offer to work with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in North Korea. He left his wife and two children in Pune, India and joined the NGO.

Prahlad is passionate about saving the world from poverty and uplifting the poor’s standard of living. He had worked with BAIF Development for five years; Oxfam International in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, has worked in Indonesia and now with Concerned Worldwide in North Korea for the past three years.

In North Korea, his job among others, required him to ensure the poor in the republic receive clean water supply. His contract with the Concerned Worldwide was supposed to end on April 1, 2014 and he already made plans to go back to India.

He no longer wanted to leave apart from his family or go back home every two or three months once. He wanted to live together as a family again and watch his children Rahul, 16 and Tashwant, 11, grow.

But, Prahlad has long leave to clear before his contract ends and so he invited his wife to join him in North Korea to spend some time visiting friends there.

Kranti is a chemistry lecturer who taught at a college in Pune for 10 years before resigning to be a fulltime housewife, four years ago.

The couple plan to return home to India after the trip.

Kranti had then got on a flight from Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur and then connected to Malaysian Airlines flight to Beijing, early Saturday morning.

From Beijing, she is to take another flight to Pyongyang.

But her flight never landed at Beijing on 6.30am. Nobody knows what happened to the flight or to Kranti and the 238 other passengers onboard.

Prahlad, upon hearing about the incident had then flew to Kuala Lumpur. Four days on waiting and still no news of the missing aircraft, he then decided to return to Pune to be with his children and other family members.

“Apart from no news of the aircraft, what is even more hurting are the conspiracy theories,” he said in Pune, Wednesday.

In his heart, Prahlad regrets inviting his wife to come for a holiday with him in Pyongyang.

“Because she has lived in Korea before this and taking into consideration that my contract was going to end, we wanted to be with friends for the last time,” he said.

Rahul, who was supposed to sit for an examination on Thursday have not even touched his books.

“I cannot study. Everything is confusing,” he said. He has been following the news on MH370 on his tablet.

He is also hurt with the conspiracy theories that has been going around.

“I am hoping for some information. How can there be no information at all,” he asked.

Rahul and Yashwant are getting ready to come to Kuala Lumpur to join the next of kin and family members of those onboard of MH370 who have been placed in several hotels here.

Their passports which expired have been renewed on Tuesday but since their father is back in Pune, they have postponed their trip for now.

Waiting is a tiring process and Rahul who was in the first floor of their house have been keeping to himself and not paying attention to the people who have been coming to their house since the news of the missing aircraft broke.

“There are too many people here. Everyone is crying. I will not cry.”

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