Misinformation from Maalai Murasu

This happened nearly three years back, when Maalai Murasu reported that the Branch Manager of SBI in our locality had committed suicide in the branch premises.

Why am I writing about this, because the BM happened to be my father !!

The fact of the matter was that a colleague of my father took the ultimate step and ours being a small locality with SBI being the biggest bank, it attracted quite a huge gathering the next morning. My father was very busy with the police officials and the bank staff in organising the investigation of the death, and did not get home until late that afternoon, it was a Sunday.

Later in the evening, he went out with my mother and while coming back, he remained in our car while she went to get some stuff from the local shop. The shopkeepers were very considerate towards my mother, asking her how she was, how I was. My mother was really surprised that she was getting such treatment, and then when my father came along from the car, everyone at the shop was flabbergasted.

Enna saar, enna aachu ? Yaaru suicide panni kittaanga ?

What had happened was that the paper had reported that Branch Manager had committed suicide, whereas it was the Asst BM who had done it. I was with my father when the body was discovered on the previous evening, and believe me, it was a ghastly sight. I will not forget that scene forever. They showed the body the next afternoon on the local Tamil channel, we found it hard to believe that it was the same person who we had interacted in flesh just 36 hrs back.

All the same, my father became a hero of the locality for sometime after that, and the branch got star status all for the wrong reasons.