Remembering Kumbakonam School Fire Victims

They are referred to as "agni pookkal", the flowers of fire. They are the 96 children who burnt to death this day one year ago at the Sri Krishna School here.

There is no memorial for them in this Tamil Nadu temple town, 350 km south of Chennai. Only their charred school stands a mute reminder of the devastating tragedy that struck on a regular morning.

The first classes were on for nearly 800 students packed into a concrete building with narrow stairwells and thatched roofs when the school caught fire from a mid-day meal kitchen.

A year on, temple and church bells rang across the primarily agrarian countryside in memory of the dead.

Mothers and fathers sat in front of the school before a large hoarding against a school wall carrying pictures of the tiny victims, smiling, posing in pig tails and school ties.

"They are not politicians... it does not matter if there is no memorial to them, it should not happen again," said Valli, a mother and teacher from nearby Thanjavur.

People came, brought flowers, laid garlands and lit lamps and joss sticks in memory of the children of Kumbakonam in front of the charred building and at gravestones in a nearby cemetery.

In Nattham village on the town's outskirts, it was in the fields and homes that 13 little ones were buried. They were remembered too. The village this year got a school and a road at last.

About a dozen mothers who lost their children in the fire have undergone re-canalisation - a process to reverse family planning procedures. They all hope, new children will be born to them again and provide balm to their grief.

Jayalakshmi conceived three months ago. Maheshwari gave birth to a baby girl who she named Meena after her 11-year-old daughter who died in the school fire.

From Friday, local schools and college students began coming in procession before the Sri Krishna School to remember the victims of an entirely avoidable accident.

"This should never happen again," said 16-year-old Maria, who came with her school group to pay tribute, "that will be the best memorial for these kids".

A judge has prepared and given a report on the accident. A criminal case is on, but no one has yet been convicted. But fire safety and awareness have increased.

Yet all over Tamil Nadu, where literacy is above 70 percent even among women, there are these inadequate schools, both private and government, that continue to flourish.

A state government assessment earlier in the year said there was at least one such unsafe primary school in this state per sq km, which comes to some 50,000 such schools.

After the tragedy, as many as 4,000 primary schools in the state were ordered closed until they upgraded their roofing and infrastructure. There is no recent study on how many of these schools have really been made student friendly. [15-07-2005 / THE END]

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