As celebrations marked the reopening of schools with colourful Praveshanolsavam elsewhere on Thursday, the Baselios Vidyanikethan Senior Secondary School at Vettickal in Mulanthuruthy kept it really subdued.
The decision to shun celebrations was deliberate. For a school which lost five of its students and a teacher hardly eight months away, the wound was still festering to have made a different choice.
A fatal accident claimed those lives when a fun-filled excursion to Ootty turned tragic after the tourist bus carrying 42 students and five teachers of the school rammed a KSRTC bus near Vadakkancherry in Palakkad on the midnight of October 5. Among the deceased students, three were from tenth standard while the other two were in Plus Two.
“We marked the beginning of the new academic year with a silent prayer in their memory. There were no celebrations but only a motivation class for students and parents. It still hurts thinking about them and their families,” said Kuriakose George, manager of the school.
The school has also instituted five awards in honour of the victims and gave them away to the toppers in Class 10 and Plus Two on Thursday morning. The awards will now be an annual affair.
“It is tough for both teachers and students to overcome the grief. But we have to, and hopefully time will heal us. Three of those students would have been in the Plus One class here today if not for that accident,” rued school Principal Tomson D’cotho.
The school had a tough time in the months following that tragedy. “We had to give counselling to students and teachers of different classes continuously for a fortnight. Even after that we continued with monthly counselling sessions for six months with the help of the police and the Kerala Legal Services Authority. Special sessions were also given ahead of the exams,” said Fr. George.
But for the immediate friends and classmates of the victims, it will be a while before they come to terms with the loss. “We shared the same bench. Not a day goes without remembering her,” a Plus One student who had shared the bench with one of the victims, Diya Rajesh, said painfully.
