Book Review: Life After MH370- Journeying Through a Void

More than three years after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in March 2014, the families of its 239 passengers are still looking for answers. Life After MH370 is the story of one such family.

The author, Chennai-based consultant KS Narendran, is the husband of one of the victims, Chandrika Sharma, who was on her way to Beijing to attend a conference. Narendran talks about the sudden turn in his life – from planning a retirement in the hills to the aching loneliness of losing a companion of 25 years, compounded by the struggle to get information from non-responsive governments, and bonding with other passengers' families to coordinate search operations.

A dozen books have been written on MH370, but "there are at least 239 stories waiting to be told at length – those of the 239 passengers' families," he says. He took to writing, once his aspiration, to express himself amidst his struggle for a new "normal".

Narendran candidly describes minute details of his life with his wife and daughter. One feels the pain of loss and his struggle to overcome it by becoming part of a larger cause. In the book, his friend remarks, "Writing, for you, is a way of emptyting yourself." To which, he replies, "True, it feels that way sometimes. But this emptying is an ongoing thing...never complete, never the last, till the end".

As per reports, no trace of the aircraft was found during search-ops (called off this January) in the southern Indian Ocean, off Australia's west coast. "Are we to continue living in a bubble created by a conspiracy of silence?"

Narendran asks.