CHENNAI: R Biradhiunan, 17, went through his engineering counselling at Anna University on Thursday afternoon and rushed back to light the pyre of his father. K. Ravindran (48), a Head Constable with the Civil Supplies’ CID Wing, was killed on the spot when the car in which he was bringing Biradhiunan was hit head-on by a truck at Ulundurpet, 200 kms from Chennai. When Biradhiunan’s shocked counsellor at the University asked him how he had managed to continue with his journey to Chennai despite the fatal mishap on route, the boy mumbled, “I came to fulfil the last wish of my father. He wanted me to become an engineer.”
“He is a brave boy,” his counsellor told Deccan Chronicle while recalling his poignant meeting with the bereaved boy, who returned to his devastated family with the allotment letter giving him his desired civil engineering course in Asan Memorial College on the OMR in Chennai. When contacted over the phone, Biradhiunan said, “I am still in the car heading home. I don't know how I am going to face my mother.” In fact, the mother is braver than the boy it appears; she had told him amid sobbing that he could leave his father's body with his uncles, who had suffered injuries in the mishap and carry on for the counselling.
“Fulfil your father's wish,” she had told him. Renuka Devi, vice president of Vathanakurichi village panchayat in Pudukottai district, was rudely woken up in the morning with the shocking news that her husband had died in a truck collision. Biradhiunan took a bus from Ulundurpet to reach Chennai just a couple of hours before his counselling appointment. Chennai Police also played a Good Samaritan by sending a policeman to receive him at Perungalathur on the outskirts and rushing him to Anna University in a car well in time for the counselling.
Anna University officials said the boy looked very emotional and did not speak much. "He attended counselling during the 1.40 pm to 3.10 pm session. We were told that he has not even had water after his father's death,” they said. “My father always supported me. I have to finish my studies and start supporting my family," Biradhiunan said.
