Chennai: It took a gruesome incident for his neighbours to know that a man named Damodharan lived amidst them. Not that he was a recluse or the family kept to themselves, but the neighbourhood knew the man as Prakash, an affable man whom the neighbourhood elders had watched grow up.
He had all along grown up in Pammal since their family moved from their native village near Mannargudi. His father Murugesan opened the textile store - Prakash textiles — and theirs is the story of every middle class family trying to make a decent living. Damodharan, who studied to be an advocate, had to discontinue studies and took over the family business. Four years ago, he purchased an apartment and moved in with his family. A year later, his father died.
The neighbours remember him as an affectionate husband and a loving father and only that. “It was not as if he had a history of domestic abuse nor were there any frequent issues in the family. None of us could believe it. We had to watch the news several times to come to terms with this”, said the couple who lived opposite Damodharan’s apartment.
Bereaved relatives who flocked the home in Pammal and the hospital expressed a range of emotions.
Most of them expressed angst against the still surviving Damodharan for taking a cowardly step in which he had to snuff out the lives of his young children. Some of those who knew the man could guess what his state of mind would have been like.
“Sheer guilt must have forced the man to do this. The guilt of not being able to take care of his family. He is too shy to even ask for help”, says Mohan Raj, a relative. Even last week, Mohan Raj remembers meeting the family at a function in Thiruvottiyur where Damodharan had talked about his business being dull. “He has been telling this to relatives for quite some time now - that post demonetisation and GST, business has taken a beating. But, is that reason enough, I am not sure”, Mohan Raj quipped.
A man who murdered his family is remembered as a good man — an anomaly best explained by a relative’s observation — “People won’t believe even if we say he was a good man!”
