CHENNAI: It has been only four months since seven-year-old Maisha lost her mother and younger sister. Even before she could recover from the loss, news of her father’s death on Monday has left the girl shattered.
Having attended her father’s funeral on Tuesday, the little girl is still not convinced that he will never come back.
She is the eldest daughter of G Arumugam, the autorickshaw driver crushed to death while sleeping in his vehicle by a speeding Porsche driven by MRF racer V Vikaas Anand (22), reportedly in an inebriated condition. Eight others were left injured.
A day after the accident, the girl, clad in a blue T-shirt and a green skirt, sat along with her cousins in front of her aunt’s house in North Street in Agoor Village near the temple town of Tiruttani. There are about 15 houses in the street and everyone there had just returned from the funeral.
On Monday morning, she was woken up with the news of her father’s death. “Though she didn’t cry, the question she asked was when will ‘Appa’ come,” said her grandmother Manjula.
Throughout the day, she never spoke to anyone. In the evening, when Arumugham’s body arrived, she was forced to come and perform the rituals. “She refused to come out of the room where she was with her cousins,” said her aunt A Nagalakshmi.
“Now since all the relatives who had come for the funeral are at home, Maisha hasn’t asked much about her father. But once they leave, she would ask for him, because she is very fond of him. He would come once in two days. On those days, she would be back from school early and run into the house to hug him and ask her share of chocolates and cake,” she added.
“On the days her father is in Chennai, she would keep on asking, ‘when will Appa come?’ All we used to say is he has gone for work to pay your school fees. Now, we are scared. We have to lie saying the same thing. For, she hasn’t recovered from the shock of the death of her sister and mother,” said the aunt.
Then, Maisha was playing in her one bedroom house, while her sister Ranjana was sleeping. “It was around 2 pm, when we heard screams. Breaking open the door, we found Maisha’s mother and her sister engulfed in fire. While Maisha, drenched in kerosene, stood rattled in one corner watching the duo in flames. The horrific incident has left her scarred to the extent that she never visited that house after that,” said G Vinayagam, elder brother of Arumugam. Following a family dispute, Pushpa allegedly killed her second daughter and committed suicide in June. “Now she is orphaned,” he bemoaned.
Arumugam and Pushpa were married in 2009 and lived in Tiruttani. Arumugam worked in Chennai and was driving a rented autorickshaw for which he had to pay the owner `300 everyday.
Racing body suspends Vikas’ licence
Trouble is piling up for Vikas Anand, the racer involved in a horrific accident early on Monday. The racer, currently in judicial custody, has had his competitive license suspended by the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI) — governing body of the sport in the country. The FMSCI, well aware of the taint that may happen from a national racing champion being involved in an accident, was quick to act. “His competitive license has been suspended. Usually when we suspend the license, it’s for a definite period of time, either one week or one month. But in Vikas’ case, we have suspended it indefinitely. When the police have completed an investigation into the incident, we will review our decision and see what has to be done from there,” FMSCI president Zayn Khan told Express. “We at FMSCI take a very strong stand against negligent driving,” Khan said. “We are fully compliant of FIA’s road safety regulations and part of our job here is to create responsible drivers,” he added. The decision means that Vikas would not be able to drive in the ‘Mazda Road to Indy’ championships in the US.
