Kannan, who had lost his life while travelling on the footboard of a bus on Friday, would soon be reduced to a mere statistic in police records. But, with his death, the boy’s ambitions and dreams of scaling great heights came to an end.
Kannan’s mother, T Jayalakshmi, said her son wanted to become an engineer. His father, Thangaraj, the sole breadwinner of the family, was as a construction worker. However, the family’s financial constraints never deterred the class X student from dreaming big.
“He always said he wanted to study mechanical engineering and was keen on academics. He scored high marks in exams and we wanted to send him to a good college,” Jayalakshmi said. Kannan was known to be a quiet boy in the neighbourhood and around a dozen people from the area were present at the Royapettah GH to console the bereaved parents.
“Only last night I gave him a test in which he scored well and I had appreciated him. I still cannot believe that he is no more,” said Selvaraj, who took Math tuition for the boy.
“He was an obedient boy and most of the families in the locality knew him well,” said Chitra, a family friend and neighbour, who lives on Kumaraguru Avenue, in Neelankarai.
His mother, Jayalakshmi, said she had warned Kannan on several occasions not to travel on footboard after a few locals had noticed him doing so and informed her about it. “Even today morning when he left the house, I advised him not to do it. He also promised me that he would never travel on footboard again,” she lamented.