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My Best Friends Daughter

Anuththara Kavindi Jayawardane

Dear All,

I am the best friend of Mrs. Sandhya Kumari Jayawardene, the mother of Anuththara Kavindi Jayawardene, the

14-year old girl who is said to have hung herself with her school tie on 22nd July 2009 . Kavindi's mother and I

are best friends since August 2000 and Kavindi was a dear friend of my daughter, who was two years youngerto her. I have known Kavindi quite closely since she was in Montessori with my daughter.

Her father is a professional/graduate Accountant and her mother too was in the accountancy field before she

gave up her job upon marriage. Her mother is from Kegalle, an innocent, down-to-earth, virtuous woman who

was a devout Buddhist. Kavindi was an only child, extraordinarily beautiful and was very shy. She was a

studious girl whose report cards received from school always described her as a "Siyalu Dena SamagaSahayogayen Kriya Karana, Vineetha, Keekaru, Sisuwiyeki". Anyone can take a look at her school books and

report cards and see if she seems a disturbed or disobedient girl.

Kavindis mother was the kind of woman who even went to the extent of having a Bodhi Poojawa for my

daughter who was a non-Buddhist, when she was sitting for her 5 th Grade Scholarship exam, thinking ofsomeone elses child as her own.

It is so saddening to hear that Kavindi's name has been tarnished by the school making her look like a girl who

was into porn, boyfriends and similar stuff whereas in actual sense she was a girl who did not even collect

pictures of movie stars, cricketers or any such thing that a teenager of today would do but was always gettinggood grades at school and excelling in studies.

In fact, Kavindi was the pillar of strength to her mother during their family ordeal of Kavindis father goingthrough a kidney transplant about two years ago. Athula, her father was not the STRICT father as depicted in

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the media. He in fact would return home and keep Kavindi on his lap and ask her what happened at school or

joke with her about things on TV. Even after Kavindi attained age and showed all signs of a beautiful younglady, Athula petted her like a little girl.

She was very close to her mother, and till her death Kavindi's world and after school activities involved playingwith her little cousins next door and helping her mother with housework. She even knew how to

cook, something only a handful of 14-year-olds today would know.

She encouraged her mother to do home-gardening and have plenty of vegetables grown in their 15 perch houseand land, and loved seeing the produce being consumed. She was never into Facebook, computer games, hip

electronic gadgets or any such thing. I was always in and out of their house as Sandhya was one of the few

persons (apart from my own Mother) that I would trust to leave my daughter with whenever I had to leave mydaughter with someone.

During the past 8 years, my daughter spent most of her holidays at their home where I would drop her off in themornings and pick her up at evening and stay on for at least 1-2 hours chatting with my best friend. Whenever I

called my daughter in between, Kavindi would talk to me too, and relate what they had been playing during the

day and tell of their plans for evening play and I would often find Sandhya feeding both my daughter and hers,if I happen to call during lunch time. Kavindi played hide and seek, dolls, imaginary house, Lego and similar

games with her mother, my daughter and her little cousins from next door and was innocent and unspoiled and afar cry from what is being told about her now.

It is sad to learn from her classmates that a Prefect from her school actually dragged her by her tie upon

confronting her for having a mobile phone in her school bag (which did not even belong to her) and taken her to

the Section Head's office and also made her kneel in public and humiliated her by showing her to others. Thisfact would now be denied by school authorities for obvious reasons but for a child who has never been

reprimanded in her entire life for indiscipline just cannot bear such humiliation, harassment and public

embarrassment.

The school authorities should also appoint Counsellors in schools who are qualified enough to handle these kind

of situations instead of having Teachers and mere school girls (Prefect Bullies) handling situations involvinghuman emotions.

Even when her body was discovered hanging in the toilet, the teachers or authorities of the school had not even

loosened her tie around the neck or given appropriate first aid to revive her.

The only thing this school can do now is to tarnish her good name and make her look like a "bad girl" who

committed suicide, thereby deviating the attention of the public to the fact that the girl was suspectedembarrassed in public, emotionally abused and mishandled by Prefects and Teachers who were not capable of

understanding emotions of a 14-year old and never thought of repercussions of misjudgement, harshness,

cruelty and public humiliation. She had in fact begged that it is okay to tell about the incident to her mother bu

never to tell her father because he was a kidney patient whom Kavindi always feared would die if he facessadness.

Kavindi was the type of girl who was so shy that she would even nudge me and her mother in embarrassment ifwe ever spoke out in public in protest for small injustices such as being over-charged at stores or such similar

small incidents and tell aney randu karanna epa ammey, nikam innako ammey, etc and blush in

embarrassment. She is the type of girl who encouraged and loved the fact that her mother was among the veryfew mothers at her school who only wore a simple Osariya whenever she had to visit Kavindis school. She

never even allowed her mothers Saree blouses to have a deep-cut neckline and would protest against any body

part of her mother being shown in public. It is this virtuous charactered Kavindi who today is being portrayedas the girl who would watch porn or pose nude for her boyfriend and allow to be photographed or filmed.

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Since the Police have found out that Kavindi is not the owner of the mobile in question, there were no

porn in the mobile, there were no nude photos or sms directed to Kavindi, then why isnt the

school issuing a statement about the true owners of the mobile phone or the actual contents of the

mobile?

Why isn't the school ascertaining the fact that the mobile did not belong to Kavindi but to the other three

students of the same school/class who had pooled and bought the mobile then slipped it into innocent and

shy Kavindi's school bag when the Prefects came along, checking for mobiles in their classroom?

Why isn't the school talking about the two girls who subsequent to Kavindi's hanging body being

found tried to commit suicide, one by stabbing herself with a bottle and the other by consuming some

toilet detergent, when they realized what they had done to their classmate Kavindi and their guilty

consciousness took the better of them?

Today, a majority of Sri Lankans know Kavindi as the girl who watched porn on her mobile and committed

suicide in shame, or "the girl who had her nude pictures in her mobile", or "the girl who was mentally ill or

depressed", or "the girl whose parents were too strict" and such ghastly impressions.

At present, my best friend is a woman who hears her only childs voice echoing around the house, sees her faceevery where, a broken woman with no hope for the future and a woman who wishes she died with Kavindi. She

is a well-read but simple housewife whose world was woven around her only child. She is still that devoutBuddhist who forgives the media for tarnishing her precious daughters name, forgives the people who did not

provide timely first aid to her daughter when they found her hanging, forgives the prefects who manhandled her

daughter, forgives the three girls who slipped the phone in Kavindi's school bag and pushed her to death inshame, but the fact remains, Sandhya's soul died along with her only child.

My only appeal to you is, despite misleading information by the media and complete silence maintained

by the relevant school, to think logically about Kavindi's name unduly tarnished along with her parents

reputation.

Please also pass this on to everyone you know.

Thank you,

Farah