Only tears and sorrow

David Selvakumar Ponniah's parents still don't know exactly what cruel twist of fate resulted in their son's young life being so suddenly and unjustly snatched away from them. They will probably never understand it either.

But life is often hard to understand. All that they are left with is the stark reality that another bright future has been stopped in its tracks. The young life they so carefully nurtured for 20 years, giving him the best they possibly could, is now no more.

Maybe it would have been easier to bear if Selva, as he was called at home, was the cause of the trouble. Maybe if they knew that in some way he had brought on his own death, the pain would somehow have been a fraction easier to bear. But to know that your child died trying to make peace must truly be unbearable.

Even worse must be to know that he had to die in school. A place where he was nurtured through the years, the place which moulded him to be what he is today.

Belonging to what many call one of the country's elite schools, David had a strong sense of pride for his Alma Mater, S. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia.

So it was only natural that when his school was organising an event, David wanted to be a part of it. Besides it would be a chance for him to meet some of his friends whom he hadn't seen for over an year. And this year, he would be there not just as another student, but in the coveted position of an old boy.

David's parents, like many others, encouraged him to take part in as many aspects of school life as possible. Race and religion did not matter to them. That is how David, a son of a Vicar, came to be at the Vani Vizha programme organised by the Hindu Association of his school on October 11.

Students from many schools in the country were invited. But instead of seeing the invitation as a gesture of friendship, a chance to put their differences aside, some pupils from invited schools, seemed to have had ulterior motives. Why else would they have brought knives into the school premises?

As far as Samuel Ponniah or Sam, David's 22-year-old brother, an English teacher at S. Thomas' College knows, a group of boys had started disturbing the programme, by hooting and annoying the audience. When asked to stop they had refused and an argument had begun inside the school hall.

When some of the seniors had asked them to take their quarrel outside the hall, it had moved to the college quadrangle, which is where David, who was on his way back from the gymnasium canteen, had noticed the brawl.

One of the college boys had pulled one of the invitees by the collar and slapped him. Angered by this, the boy had called upon some of his friends to join the fight, which is reportedly when things took a deadly turn.

David had intervened to stop the quarrel, which is when the tragedy took place.

One of the boys had turned on him and stabbed him with a knife. One single cut, but it turned out to be fatal.

It cut deep into David's upper thigh, opening up one of the main arteries. He came running into the hall, with his assailant chasing after him, says Sam. They had then closed the main doors, to keep his assailant out. David fell into a chair and leaned against it, faint due to the large amount of blood he was rapidly losing. "I had to take my brother out through a side door, because the main door was closed," Sam said bitterly.

"I wanted to take him to the Accident Ward of the General Hospital, but a medical student who was with us at the time said it would take too long and against my insistence, directed the driver to the Kalubowila Hospital. David was incoherent on the way, and understood little of what was going on. Only three things he said on the way made sense."

"He told me that he had been cut, that a knife had been used, and just before he was admitted, that he was finding it difficult to breathe," Sam said.

He suffered a cardiac arrest on admission. He was resuscitated and then taken to the operating theatre, where consultant surgeon at the hospital, Dr. Mohan de Silva, had stopped the bleeding.

But by this time, David had lost 80 per cent of his blood, and although blood transfusions were given he lacked the vital clotting factors.

Various clotting factors such as platelets had been introduced, but the acute shock he had received was too much, and blood started seeping out from his nose and mouth.

There was nothing more the surgeon could do, and after being admitted at 8.15 p.m. on Saturday night, David died at 3.00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.

A death certificate and the painful silence in his home, are the stark reminders, that for his family, life can never be the same again.

What will life without David be then? "I can't even imagine," says Reverend Jubilee Ponniah, David's father. "He was such an innocent boy. He got on well with anyone, a child, a colleague or a parent. He loved children. He also loved animals. See, I told you," he says, pointing to a picture of David next to a horse.

And as a brother? "He was very lively," was almost all that Sam could choke out. He was so overcome with grief, that at times he seemed not to hear our questions. He just stared into space, with a faraway look in his eyes, probably thinking of happier times, when David's warmth filled their lives. "He was closest to his mother. She's unable to do anything," said the soft spoken Reverend.

"Now I know what other parents in our situation must have gone through. It's all the fault of this war. Our children are influenced by what they see and hear about the war, and of course, all the violence shown on television these days.

His colleagues at Bartleets Financial Services, where David was working say he was a very friendly boy, who got on well with everybody.

There were no prefects around at the time. Maybe they could have handled the situation better. But Acting Warden of St. Thomas' College, D.A. Pakianathan says that there's little anyone can do when somebody is brandishing a knife.

Last year at the same event there had been a bomb threat at the school and the Police were called in, says Sam. This year however, though the organisers had written to the Mount Lavinia Police informing them of the event, there was no Police presence.

Sam angrily says that the festival had gone on even after his brother had run into the hall, left his bloodied trousers there and been taken to the hospital. School authorities continued with the festival, because "Nobody knew it had happened. The guests were all in the front of the hall, and the boys were at the back." The Acting Warden was not present at the time, having left earlier in the day.

Dinesh Balendran, one of the other three who were injured, is recovering in hospital. His father says Dinesh doesn't know what happened because as soon as he went towards the group, he was stabbed in the back, and fainted.

Nobody knows for sure the root cause of the tragedy. But some schoolboys say this animosity was simmering for an year now. Last year, at the same function the boys of an invited school had wanted the National Anthem played in Tamil, they said. S.Thomas' had refused, and a squabble had broken out. Apparently, things hadn't ended there, as the boys of the invited school had, this year, come prepared with knives. Their intentions were only too clear.

What action will the school be taking if they ever discover a pupil with a dangerous weapon? "Appropriate action will be taken," Acting Warden Pakianathan says.

There are still many questions to be asked, and still more to be answered.

But whatever the reasons for children to turn upon each other in so vile a fashion, to so cruelly destroy not just one life, but a whole family's, they will not ease the grief of the families of all the Davids in this country.

David should have been blowing out the 20 candles on his birthday cake, on October 15.

But there was no joy on that day. Only tears and sorrow. The only flame that was blown out was of the candle of his life.

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