On the 7th of September 1996, around six in the morning, a girl in her late teens stood in front of the portrait of Goddess Saraswathi that was hanging askew on the wall. Here she stood erect, with closed eyes and clasped hands, in contemplation for a few minutes. There was a special reason for her to ask for favors from this Goddess on this particular day.
She was in the midst of the G.C.E (A/L) examination, and on this particular day in less than four hours, she would be answering her Chemistry Multiple Choice paper. Needless to say among the pantheon of Hindu deities Saraswathie was identified since she was the Goddess of learning.
The girl's name was Krishanthi Kumaraswamy and she attended Chundukuli Girls’ College, a prestigious school for girls, in Jaffna. On this morning her mother cobbled together a meal from what was available at that early hour. Krishanthi had only a small portion of the meal as she was never hungry enough for a full breakfast. Following breakfast the girl flicked through the notes, in condensed form, she had prepared for last-minute revision. Around 7.15 a.m. the girl, attired in her white school uniform, red tie, socks, and shoes took her red bicycle outside the house and walked towards the road, twenty meters from the house. Mother followed daughter up the road, wished her ‘good luck’ and watched her mount the bicycle, and literally fly away until she lost sight of the girl.
The name of the affectionate mother was Rasammah Kumaraswamy. She was 59 years of age and a graduate of a prominent Indian university. In 1996 she was serving as vice-principal of a school at Kaithady, where her house was located. She was blessed with three
children. The eldest daughter, Prashanthi, was living in Colombo pursuing a course that would lead towards a professional qualification, her second daughter Krishanthi who was now in the midst of an examination; and the youngest Pranavan, a boy going on sixteen awaiting G.C.E (O/L) examination results. Rasammah became a widow in 1984 and to her, life had no purpose if not for these children.
