KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

On a day that should have been spent ho­n­our­ing their fa­ther, Suni­ta Per­sad sang through her grief in an emo­tion­al trib­ute to her younger sis­ter, 15-year-old Ma­li­ni Per­sad, dur­ing the autis­tic teen’s fu­ner­al at their Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore home yes­ter­day.

Suni­ta’s voice quiv­ered as she sang Free­dom, a song she wrote for Ma­li­ni last year.

“You are my light, you are my shad­ow, you are my every­thing in my life. I am your shad­ow, I am your light, I am your every­thing in your life,” she sang, her voice heavy with grief.

Ear­li­er, soft strains of Don­na Tag­gart’s Jeal­ous of the An­gels played in the back­ground as pall­bear­ers car­ried the cas­ket in­to the yard. Ma­li­ni’s fa­ther, An­drew Per­sad, swayed gen­tly, as he held on to his wife, Leela, and Suni­ta and looked at a framed pho­to of Ma­li­ni that had been placed on the cas­ket.

The teen was re­port­ed miss­ing from home on April 13. CCTV footage lat­er showed her walk­ing with sev­er­al bags along­side 52-year-old Vin­od Ko­tai. Her re­mains were found six days lat­er in a forest­ed area off KPA Road.

Al­though an au­top­sy was con­duct­ed soon af­ter the body was found, the re­lease of the re­sults was de­layed as DNA sam­ples had to be sent abroad for fur­ther test­ing.

Ko­tai, who was de­tained dur­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, lat­er died from self-in­flict­ed in­juries while in po­lice cus­tody on April 19.

Pre­sid­ing over the fu­ner­al, pun­dit Dhar­men­dra Per­sad Shar­ma of­fered com­fort, say­ing while death may bring bless­ing to the soul, it is of­ten cru­el to the body. He com­pared life to a tree stand­ing on the sandy banks of a rive that was, even­tu­al­ly top­pled by rush­ing cur­rents.

Pun­dit Shar­ma ex­tend­ed Fa­ther’s Day greet­ings and asked the mourn­ers to pray for all the fa­thers present as he ex­pressed hope that no oth­er par­ent would have to en­dure the Fa­ther’s Day that Ma­li­ni’s fa­ther faced.

In the eu­lo­gy, Ma­li­ni’s cousin Maria Vasquez said the fam­i­ly was at a loss for words. She said while go­ing through the teen’s be­long­ings she found a note in which Ma­li­ni had de­scribed her­self as “cu­ri­ous, en­er­getic, in­tel­lec­tu­al, cre­ative and eas­i­ly up­set.”

“Any­one who knew her well knew she was a lit­tle fire­crack­er in her own right,” Vasquez said.

She de­scribed Ma­li­ni as strong and de­ci­sive, with an in­no­cent but clear sense of self. The youngest of her grand­par­ents’ grand­chil­dren, she was con­sid­ered the ba­by of the fam­i­ly.

Vasquez prayed that Ma­li­ni would find peace in God’s em­brace, and asked mourn­ers to car­ry her light with them al­ways, not as it once shone, but in every mem­o­ry, every echo of those who loved her.

“You are the con­tin­u­a­tion of her sto­ry,” she said. “Live as she did—hon­est, brave, and strong.”

In a fi­nal mes­sage to the mur­dered teen, she said: “Ba­by, you were a mys­tery wrapped in joy, fierce and fun­ny in your own way. I just want­ed to say I was sor­ry, and that I will live the rest of my days do­ing good in your name.

“You left an im­pact on us that will push us to do more every sin­gle day. My heart aches, and my soul is shat­tered. You did not get enough time to en­joy the splen­dours of this world.”

Azaria Mo­hammed, a teacher at AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege Bar­rack­pore, al­so paid trib­ute, say­ing the school com­mu­ni­ty felt for­tu­nate to have had Ma­li­ni among them for the past two years. She de­scribed her as in­tel­li­gent and cre­ative, al­ways re­spect­ful and smil­ing.

“Ma­li­ni loved maths, art, sci­ence, and so­cial stud­ies. She en­joyed de­bat­ing an­swers with class­mates and was al­ways ea­ger to sing and share her songs,” Mo­hammed.

Fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Ma­li­ni’s body was tak­en to the Shore of Peace, South Oropouche, for cre­ma­tion.