Sunday, October 24th, 2004
Educating Prabha
Up until last Thursday, Prabha was just another class VII student at St Joseph’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Cuddalore. If the school has parent-teacher meetings at all, Prabha’s father never attended any of them. It is doubtful if Prabha had even seen her father, the dreaded criminal, Veerappan, except on television and in the newspapers.
Prabha and her sister, Vijayarani, were raised by their mother, Muthulaxmi. A single-parent family would be something of an exception in small town South India. There must have been whispers but it is to the credit of the mother that she chose to take the hard way out and choose an education for her children rather than live off the fat (and the ivory) of the land plundered by the man who the world knew as a smuggler, terrorist, killer and brigand but who she knew only as a husband. Presuming she knew him at all.
Veerappan has been a hunted man for over a decade now. Which means, at some point, man and wife sat down and decided that their children would take the path of right. It must have been one of the saner moments in a life marked by lunacy and anger. Maybe fatherhood does change the most hardened among us.