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| Prema Jayakumar |
The results of the chartered accountancy (CA) examinations that Prema and her younger brother, 22-year-old Dhanraj, had been expecting were a big deal, but both siblings knew that they would clear the highly competitive exam; they had been working hard for it. For Prema’s parents, auto-rickshaw driver Jayakumar Perumal and home-maker Lingammal Jayakumar, the exam was one of a succession of academic hoops that their daughter had been negotiating with ease for years. But no one in the family guessed that Prema would score 607 out of 800, the highest in the country, and become an overnight celebrity.
Residing in a small (280sq.ft), room in Malad, a Mumbai surburb, Prema’s family of four have seen a lot of hardships but the good days are here for them. For Prema, however, the limelight is a distraction from her real purpose: to establish a firm economic foothold for her family, who moved to Mumbai from Tamil Nadu around 20 years ago, and, perhaps, to work for the Reserve Bank of India one day.
Prema’s father seems overwhelmed by his daughter’s success; at a loss for words except to repeat how happy she has made him. Perumal, from Sankarapuram in Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu, first moved to Mumbai in the early 1990s and took a job at a mill, before becoming an auto-rickshaw driver. When things got tough, he sold a patch of land the family owned in their native village. For a while, Prema’s mother worked at a factory that manufactured hair clips in Vasai, but left the job four years ago for health reasons.
The family was not well off and all of Perumal’s three children, two daughters and a son, attended local government schools. The eldest—Mahalaxmi—at 26, is married with two children. But Prema, the middle sibling, was focused on academics from the beginning. Prema was marked out as a particularly sharp student in 2008, when she was ranked second in Mumbai University’s bachelor of commerce exam, and decided to take up chartered accountancy.
Every year more than 30,000 students sit for these exams and less than 15% make it through. It’s a highly competitive course with three levels—the common proficiency test (CPT), the integrated professional competence course (IPCC) and the CA final. Prema passed all three in one go.
Amid all this, the 25 year old remains focused. All this publicity will help her live her dreams, she hopes. “First of all I want my dad to rest, want to buy a house now.”
Being the daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver never put her down, Prema says. “Now I say with my held head high that my father is an auto-driver and he did all he could to educate me and make me what I am today.”
Rarest of the rare are those who surprise this materialistic world by their outstanding performance despite tough and adverse circumstances. Prema is one of them. TSR Pulse proud to project her as our youth icon of the week. Heartiest congrats for her outstanding achievement. J
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