Our dreams were buried with him, says Ramkumar's father

MADURAI: A pall of gloom has descended over Meenakshipuram in Sengottah in Tenkasi taluk, Tirunelveli district, as people continue to queue outside the home of P Ramkumar, who allegedly committed suicide in Puzhal prison on September 18 after getting arrested in connection with the murder of Swathi. Though he was buried on Sunday, his parents are unable to come to terms that their son is no more.
The family laid him to rest in the burial ground about one kilometre away from their home.The burial pit was filled with flowers and salt before the body was lowered into it. "We would like to construct a tomb over it, but have no money to do so. Hence, for now, it will be just a mound of sand," said Ramkumar's father R Paramasivam.
Paramasivam said that his son was a reserved and sensitive boy since childhood. "He liked to graze cattle in his free time. As he was the first graduate in our family, I obtained an educational loan of 1.80 lakh from the Canara Bank in Sengottah. I don't know how I am going to repay it," he told TOI.
As Ramkumar was not very studious, the bank had refused the last installment of the loan, citing his arrears as the reason. He had gone to Chennai to find a job and also to study in a library there to clear his arrears, the father said. "I was a BSNL staff, who had studied just up to Class Six. I believed that my family would come up economically and that my son would marry off my daughters. But now I have lost all hope," he said.
Ramkumar's sisters Madhubala and Kaleeswari, who were employed in a school and at a private bank respectively, had given up their jobs on the day he was arrested. As a result, the family is finding it hard to meet the ends. Ramkumar's mother is hysterical and keeps talking about her son's childhood and his visits to the village.
"He was calm when he came to the house, from where the police arrested him. Will someone who committed such a heinous crime be able to conceal it? He wanted to speak to us after coming out on bail. But now we will never know what he wanted to say," Paramasivam said.
The entire village came to their home on Monday evening to pay respects to the boy. They prepared his favourite dishes and offered them to his spirit as per the rituals of the community. "He was a vegetarian. So, we prepared vegetarian food, along with fruits that he loved, like apples and oranges," said the father.
C Selvam, a relative who owns a farm adjoining the family's, said that Ramkumar was one of the quietest boys in the village. "We had to press him to talk to other boys. He was so reserved. We have lost a wonderful and responsible boy," he said.