Lucknow: For weeks, 24-year-old 3D artist Nilesh Kumar had quietly worked on a surprise he never got to deliver. Tucked away inside a notebook in his room was a hand-drawn sketch of his parents—Shatruhan Lal, 70, and Santosh Kumari, 60,—he had planned to gift them on their wedding anniversary in July.The prized souvenir reached the distraught parents only after they had lit the son’s pyre.Nilesh was among the 15 people killed in the devastating Aliganj fire. In the days that followed, as Nilesh’s grief-stricken family gathered his belongings, they came across the carefully preserved sketch. The portrait, intended to celebrate his parents’ lifelong companionship, has now become the family’s most cherished possession—and its deepest heartbreak.Santosh Kumari sits for hours holding the drawing against her chest, running her trembling fingers over the pencil lines her son so lovingly drew. Shatruhan Lal, who retired from the electricity department, stays quiet for most of the day.“He wanted to hand it to them himself,” Nilesh’s elder brother Abhishek Kumar told TOI.Family members said Nilesh intended to present the portrait around Guru Purnima on July 29, when the family would have celebrated his parents’ wedding anniversary. What was meant to be a moment of laughter, surprise and photographs together has instead become a memory marked by silence.Every stroke of the sketch reflects the young artist’s affection for his parents. While the portrait captures their smiling faces, the couple who inspired it now look at it through tears.Drawing was not merely Nilesh’s profession—it was the language through which he expressed himself. Abhishek shared that Nilesh took to sketching when he was 13 or 14 years old, effortlessly recreating popular cartoon characters such as Motu Patlu, Chhota Bheem and Shinchan.“By the time he was 16, he decided to make a career in animation,” Abhishek said.After completing professional training in animation, Nilesh spent the past three to four years establishing himself as a 3D artist, earning appreciation for his creativity while dreaming of giving his parents a better life.The brothers’ last conversation now haunts the family. “He was checking flight tickets to Kolkata for Durga Puja in Oct. We chatted about travel plans, family and other things. It was a normal conversation. We never imagined those would be the last words we would ever exchange.”The family has received a compensation cheque of ₹5 lakh from govt, while the remaining assistance is still under process. “Everything happened so suddenly,” Abhishek said. “People came to help, but we were not in a state to understand anything.”For the family, the sketch is no longer a piece of artwork. It is Nilesh’s final message of love—one that arrived too late. The anniversary gift that was meant to bring smiles to two ageing parents has instead become the last trace of the son who dreamt of making them happy, even in the smallest of ways.
