Monday, January 20, 2014

Dian Fossey

Sunanda Pushkar and Shashi Tharoor had a bitter spat on Jan 15

Close
<a target="_blank" href="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/clickthrough?slotid=36397"><img alt="Advertisement" height="250" width="300" border="0" src="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/photoserv?slotid=36397"></a>
NEW DELHI: Sunanda Pushkar and Shashi Tharoor had a bitter spat all the way on the flight from Tiruvananthapuram to Delhi on January 15 that drew the attention of fellow passengers and the flaming row continued at Delhi airport.

As police probe circumstances leading to Sunanda's death at a city hotel, the on-board fight points to differences that clearly persisted despite the couple's joint statement that claimed their marriage was intact.

This open display of differences between the couple, sources said, was seen by I&B minister Manish Tewari, who sat across the aisle from the couple. Tewari boarded the flight at Mumbai where he had attended a function.

Piecing together details of what happened in the aircraft and at the hotel, police feel the Tharoors virtually fought non-stop for about 72 hours over Tarar before Sunanda's death. "Differences had been brewing over six months but aggravated in the last two. She was extremely depressed and angry in her last three-four days," a source said.

Investigators will examine if the harsh exchanges between the couple became the final trigger for Sunanda's death. With Tharoor's domestic help Narain telling police arguments between the couple had indeed turned violent, police are awaiting the autopsy report. Her body reportedly had scratch marks and bruising behind the wrists.

Tewari was a witness to the events on board the flight and police sources said he had sought to calm things down. Bur sources close to the minister said he did not intervene at any stage. At the airport the spat apparently continued and Sunanda was seen rushing to the washroom in tears. Parts of the argument have apparently been captured in CCTV footage outside the airport washroom.

Investigators said there is reason to suspect these fights may have played a role in the death. "After the airport fiasco, the couple continued arguing, possibly even on January 16 night after Tharoor moved into the hotel. After landing in Delhi, Pushkar refused to go home and went to the hotel alone. Tharoor joined her the next day," an official said.

Indicating the argument on January 16 night may have turned violent, doctors who conducted the autopsy on Saturday on Sunanda said she had injury marks on her body. But doctors are yet to officially state the nature of injuries.

Sunanda, it is believed, overdosed on Alprax tablets after this fiasco which lasted overnight. Empty strips of the antidepressant pills have been recovered from the room. A sub-divisional magistrate will record Tharoor's statement by Monday.

Sunanda Pushkar's death

1 of 10
  • Dian Fossey was born on January 16, 1932, in San Francisco, California. While working as an occupational therapist, Fossey became interested in primates during a trip to Africa in 1963. She studied the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest for two decades before her unsolved murder occurred in 1985, at Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. Fossey told her story in the book Gorillas in the Mist (1983),

    Quotes

    "It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes."
    – Dian Fossey
    which was later adapted for a film starring Sigourney Weaver.

    Early Life

    Primatologist and naturalist Dian Fossey was born on January 16, 1932, in San Francisco, California, and grew up with her mother and stepfather. Developing an affinity for animals at a young age, throughout her youth, Fossey was an avid horseback rider and an aspiring veterinarian. However, after enrolling in pre-veterinary studies at the University of California, Davis, she transferred to San Jose State College and changed her major to occupational therapy.
    After graduating from San Jose in 1954, Fossey spent several months working as a hospital intern in California, and then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where she began serving as director of the Kosair Crippled Children's Hospital's occupational therapy department in 1955. Living on a farm on the outskirts of Louisville, Fossey spent many off-hours happily tending to the livestock. But her contentment didn't last long. She soon became restless, longing to see other parts of the world and setting her sights on Africa.

    'Gorillas in the Mist'

    In September 1963, Fossey embarked on her first trip to Africa—which cost Fossey her entire life savings at the time, as well as a bank loan—visiting Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Congo, among other areas. She soon met paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey and her husband, archaeologist Louis Leakey, one of the best-known husband-wife teams in the history of science.
    Fossey then met Joan and Alan Root, native wildlife photographers who were working on a documentary of African gorillas at the time, and when the couple brought her along on one of their trips in search of the primates, Fossey was instantly enamored. She later explained her draw to gorillas in her 1983 autobiographical work, Gorillas in the Mist: "It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes," Fossey said. "I left Kabara with reluctance, but with never a doubt that I would, somehow, return to learn more about the gorillas of the misted mountains."
    Back in Kentucky, Dian Fossey caught up with Louis Leakey at a lecture in Louisville in 1966, and he invited her to take on a long-term study of the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest (Leakey believed that researching primates would greatly benefit the study of human evolution). Fossey accepted the offer, and subsequently lived among the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo until civil war forced her to escape to Rwanda.
Sunanda Pushkar's husband Union minister Shashi Tharoor with her son Shiv Menon while they were taking away her body from the AIIMS in New Delhi on Saturday. (PTI photo)

No comments:

Post a Comment