CHENNAI: He waded through hip-level water to bring his cousins to safety after heavy rains on Tuesday night. But, 35-year-old Arumai Nathan Paul, an entrepreneur, was washed away by the currents near his apartment in Keezhkattalai on December 1, only to be found dead two days later.
Around 8.30 pm on Tuesday as the city witnessed its recent spell of downpour, Paul left his apartment on 200 feet radial road, Keelkattalai, to bring his cousins living two streets away to safety.
By the time he reached their place, the water rose to his chest and in a few seconds, he was nowhere to be seen. While the cousins moved to a higher floor and survived, Paul was washed away, relatives told Express at the GRH mortuary on Friday where his body was kept for autopsy.
After frantic searches in mortuaries and posts in social media hoping to learn about his whereabouts, the family members finally found his dead body at a private hospital in their area.
“One of his friends who happened to visit Kamatchi hospitals in Pallikaranai overheard the staff there discussing about two unidentified bodies on wednesday. He quickly cross checked and confirmed that it was our Paul,” Dorothy, his aunt living at Nungambakkam told Express.
Not even a fortnight had passed since he celebrated his first wedding anniversary. While his family hails from Kharagpur in West Bengal, his wife Ashwitha’s family is from Bengaluru and couldn’t be reached as mobile services are down.
Paul’s family moved to Keelkattalai only a year ago after returning from Maryland, US, to launch his own start-up, according to relatives.
“Only the neighbours are with Ashwitha now, consoling her. We are lost with the formalities. We got to move the body to Bengaluru and airlift the body to Kharagpur from there,” Dorothy added.