Bengaluru: Kongetira Mireille Chengappa, aged 86 years, wife of Maj. Gen. Kongetira M. Chengappa and daughter of General Kodandera S. Thimayya, passed away in Bengaluru at 7 pm yesterday. She leaves behind her son K.C. Belliappa and daughter Amrita.

Last rites will be performed at Hebbal crematorium in Bengaluru today at 6 pm, said family sources.

General Kodandera Subayya Thimayya served as the Chief of Army Staff from 1957 to 1961 in the crucial years leading up to the conflict with China in 1962.

Mireille was born in 1936 and Gen. Thimayya and his wife Nina (from Codanda family) named her Mireille as Nina was sent to France for schooling as a 13-year-old. She stayed there for 5 years and found the name Mireille popular in France.

Mireille studied at Bishop Cotton Girls School in Bengaluru for a brief period before she went to Woodstock at Mussoorie and later had a stint at J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai

Her son (Gen. Thimayya’s grandson) Belliappa lives in Bengaluru and is married to Nicole, a professional photographer. The General’s granddaughter Amrita is married to a German and they live near Almora in Uttaranchal.