PALAKKAD: For years, Mullankuzhi Pradeep Kumar has driven an autorickshaw in and around Karimba panchayat to make ends meet, while his wife Sajitha has worked as a daily-wage labourer. Their modest hopes for a better future rested partly on their eldest daughter, Gopika, whose education and first steps towards a career had offered the family a glimpse of a life beyond hardship.
Those hopes were shattered in the early hours of Sunday when a speeding Mini Cooper rammed into the scooter carrying the 21-year-old and two of her colleagues near the Athani signal, close to Kochi airport.
At their small house in Edakkurussy in Karimba panchayat, relatives and neighbours gathered on Sunday to mourn her death and console the bereaved family.
The sudden loss was difficult to reconcile with the hopes they had placed in the young woman who had been working towards building a future for herself and her family.
“Gopika had successfully completed her BCA degree in August. She was pursuing a six-month certification course in Palarivattom and working part-time at a nearby craft shop during the evenings. Her studies and job represented more than personal progress for a family that had long struggled to make ends meet,” said K Radhakrishnan, a member of the panchayat and a long-time acquaintance of Pradeep Kumar.
Gopika’s younger brother, Abhijith, is a polytechnic student in Palakkad, and her younger sister, Deepika, studies in Class X at Deshabandhu High School, Thachampara.
“For the family, Gopika’s education had held out the possibility of better days. Her earnings, even from a part-time job, were part of that hope. Now, the family must confront not only the loss of their daughter but also the sudden end of the future they had hoped she would build,” said a close relative.
Gopika’s funeral will be held at Ivarmadom, Thiruvilwamala, at 10am on Monday.