Brother fails, others bury him

VELLORE: Ever since he broke away from his family over a decade back, the Ranipet bazaar had been his home. On Saturday, when he died on the streets and his elder brother was reluctant to accept the body, the traders of the bazaar would not let him go as an ‘unclaimed body’.They pooled in money and gave him a fitting farewell.A kind soul, Kalyana Venkatraman, who hails from a Brahmin family, had endeared himself to the traders of the bazaar doing odd jobs for them and subsisting on food and small gifts given to him. He never accepted money for the work. At night he slept in the bazaar itself, doubling up as a watchman, guarding the shops.On Saturday, Venkatraman, who was in his sixties, died in his sleep after a brief illness. Immediately, the shop-owners alerted the Ranipet police. The sub-inspector, Vasuboopathi, who made some enquiries, found out that Venkatraman’s elder brother was living in another part of Ranipet, in Periyar Nagar.So, the 71-year-old brother, Soundararajan, was brought to the bazaar to identify the body. Though he confirmed that the dead man was his younger brother, the brother,citing financial constraints, expressed his inablity to organise a funeral.He told the police that it would not be possible for his relatives, who lived far away, to attend the last rites and refused to take the body home. Enraged over the attitude of the brother, the traders decided to claim the body from the police. They arranged an ambulance to take the body to the public graveyard and gave Venkatraman a decent burial.