Harsha Maddula’s family members appeared overcome with grief, as they walked behind the casket bearing the young Garden City Park student’s body out of the Park Chapel Funeral Home on Monday morning.
His mother Dhanalakshmi sobbed uncontrollably as her husband, Prasad, and one of her sons physically supported her. Prasad Maddula cried out “Harsha, Harsha,” as the casket was placed in a hearse following services at the funeral home.
The hearse was to carry the remains to a site in Queens for cremation in accordance with Hindu practice
During the funeral, Harsha’s family and friends offered prayers from the Hindu scripture of the Bhagavad Gita and expressed mixed emotions in testimonials to the 18-year-old who died suddenly from an undetermined cause after an off-campus party at Northwestern University on Sept. 21.
A private funeral observance preceded the public wake and scripture reading at Park Chapel Funeral Home in Garden City Park
During the public part of the funeral ceremony, Harsha’s younger brother, Tanay, read a section of the sacred Hindu text that relates a conversation between Arjuna, a hero of the scripture, and Krishna during which Arjuna acknowledges Krishna’s divinity.
As the family grieved over the young straight-A pre-med student, the family was awaiting the authorities to provide answers about what had happened to Harsha Madulla.
“He was a wonderful boy. Kids should be like Harsha,” said his uncle Sam Maddali. “Why does it have to happen to our family? We want answers. Somebody knows on the campus. They should come out and give
closure to the mom and dad.”
Maddula’s body was discovered last Thursday night in the water of a Lake Michigan marina at Willmette Harbor, two miles north of the Northwestern Campus in Evanston. Maddula, a graduate of New Hyde Park Memorial High School, had gone missing nearly one week earlier after attending a Friday night party off campus. A cell phone call he made early Saturday morning, Sept. 22 at 1 a.m. received by a cell phone tower in the Wilmette area led officials to search the marina.
Northwestern University Police had enlisted the help of the FBI and the Evanston Police Department was also involved in searching for the student.
Police have said there was no evidence of foul play. The cause of death remains “undetermined” by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office pending results of toxicology tests.
Speaking on Friday by phone in the wake of the news about Harsha’s death, longtime family friend and neighbor Dr. Shaikh Hasan recalled memories of a boy who “grew up in front of our eyes.”
Hasan recalled Harsha doing volunteer work at Winthrop-University Hospital for two years while in high school and doing volunteer work in the molecular biology research lab at Cornell University during the last summer before he graduated high school.
“He was a very good boy. He did nothing but study his whole life. He was always a straight-A student,” Hasan said. “And he was always dreaming to be a doctor.”
The diabetes Harsha started suffering with during the past year had turned his thoughts to becoming an endocrinologist.
At the funeral home, Columbia University sophomore Roshan Ramkeesoon, who said he was a close friend of Harsha’s at New Hyde Park Memorial High School, described him as someone who “always wanted to help people” and a person who was “very studious.
“It’s really tragic this happened, especially to someone so good,” he said. “It’s really a shock.
Sienna College student Sherleyn Shaju recalled Harsha as a friend who was always quick to aid anyone who needed a hand.
“He was really kind and if you needed help he would be at your door before anyone else,” he said.
Shaju recalled seeing his friend last in late August, just before they were both to depart for college.
“We knew we were going to see each other real soon, but obviously that didn’t happen,” Shaju said. “I’m just kind of angry and he didn’t deserve any of this. He was the most responsible kid there is.”
He said Harsha enjoyed playing video games and mastered the Java programming language in a week.
“He was smart at anything he did.” Shaju said.
Her voice breaking with emotion, one of Harsha’s many cousins told the mourners, “when I was struggling in school, he helped me. He said never give up.”
Many family and friends remained in the room where the wake was held, listening to scripture readings and the memorial comments that followed them. Some gathered in small groups in quiet conversation just outside the room.
Local officials also came to pay their respects on Monday morning.
“It’s sad when you lose someone so young,” said Richard Faccio, the new principal at New Hyde Park Memorial High School. “Everything I’ve heard about this young man is that he was a great student and a wonderful student.”
“It’s a tragic day and unbelievably painful to lose a child,” said Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano. “The unrest surrounding his death makes it even more difficult for his family and friends to come to terms with the loss of Harsha.”
Family friend Komal Pandya-Singh spoke of Harsha’s aspirations for a medical career and suggested there was something for others to learn from him.
“He was respectful and polite and he was headed toward that goal since he was eight or nine years old. It’s beyond me why he was hand-picked for something so awful. But maybe that’s an example for all of us, to do what he did in his short life.”
In his own words, reprinted in a funeral program, Harsha said, “My goals, my obligations, and my dreams are the manifestations of the sophisticated man. To become less than a genius but more than ordinary is what I hope to do.”
Along with his father, Prasad, and his mother, Dhanalakshmi Maddula, Harsha is survived by his younger twin brothers, Vinay and Tanay, and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.
