Kerala - Kochi   

In mourning, for the five friends

Kochi: ‘A whole village in tears’ and ‘A village sobs’ are some of the clichéd phrases that newspapers use, often exaggeratedly, to report villagers grieving after tragic deaths in their midst.

But, on Monday, Chittethukara in the Thrikkakara panchayat was actually in tears when five youths met with tragic death on the road near Palani.

The five had left on a pilgrimage-cum-holiday trip along with several others from the nearby villages just a day after the ‘Cheriya Perunnaal’ celebration.

They had planned to visit the Ervadi dargah, Thenkashi and Munnar as part of an extended perunnaal celebration.

But the celebration was cut short by a fatal road accident near Palani and the five youths, all in their early twenties, died instantly.

The five had been close friends, they lived in the same neighbourhood, their families were very close and equally poor, they had all attended the same school and all the five used make their living by doing odd jobs.

When the bodies were brought to Chittethukara past midnight on Monday, hundreds of local people who had gathered to pay their final respects wept along with the parents and relatives of the dead.

The entire village was, actually, in tears.

The bodies were cremated in the local mosque’s graveyard early Tuesday morning amid the prayers and sobs of more than thousand people.

Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy, local MLAs and the District Collector were among a host of dignitaries who visited the village and comforted the grieving families.

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