BENGALURU: In a heartrending incident, the parents of a software engineer who passed away due to cardiac arrest in the US are flying out of Bengaluru early on Wednesday to perform their son’s funeral rituals there. This was made possible as the Regional Passport Office a passport in record time for the mother on Tuesday.
The septuagenarian couple, Rangaraju and Geetha, residents of Yelahanka, will leave from Kempegowda International Airport to Texas by a 3 am flight on Wednesday.
The parents’ relative, RN Kishore, who facilitated the process, told TNIE, “My relatives received the news of the shocking death of their son, R Karthik, on Monday morning (December 25) from another relative in the US. Their 43-year-old son, a software engineer, was on a vacation to Colorado with his wife and two young children when he collapsed suddenly and passed away.”
The parents decided that the funeral rites could be performed in Texas and decided to book their flight tickets. Both of them already had valid visas, said Kishore, who is a manager in a private firm.
“When they checked their passports on Monday evening, Geetha’s had validity up to March 2024. But a minimum six-month validity is necessary for them to visit the US. Rangaraju had the required passport validity,” he explained.
One of Kishore’s acquaintances knew Bengaluru Regional Passport Officer K Krishna and immediately contacted him. The woman was asked to come to the passport office on Tuesday morning.
“The couple reached the RPO head office at Koramangala by 10 am and submitted the documents. They walked out by 1 pm with a reissued passport. Their tickets were booked immediately and they are getting ready to leave,” the relative said. The family is relieved as they had not imagined it would be done so quickly, he added.
“This crucial help mattered a lot for all of us. We are grateful to Krishna. If not for this assistance, they might have missed out the opportunity to see their son one last time,” he said.
The Regional Passport Officer said, “Our thoughts were to provide a caring, supportive and immediate solution to the bereaved mother. This is one of the quickest times we have taken to reissue a passport.”