Prema Jayakumar, 24, daughter of an autorickshaw driver at suburban Malad in Mumbai, conquered all odds to emerge as topper in the Chartered Accountancy (CA) exam. For her father Jayakumar Perumal, who had migrated to Mumbai from Sankarapuram in Villupuram district in 1990 hoping to find a job to take care of his wife and three children, it was double joy as his son Dhanraj too cleared CA in the first attempt along with elder sister Prema in the exam conducted in November 2012. The CA results were declared on Monday.
“I am thrilled, obviously. This is my lifetime achievement. My brother and I achieved this with sheer hard work. And we both owe our success to the sacrifices made by our parents, with their loving support throughout,” Prema told this newspaper over the phone, adding that her life’s ambition “from now will be to ensure that our parents live in comfort”.
The family lives in a one-room chawl and all the three children — two girls and a boy —studied in the local municipal school that had Tamil as second language. Prema stood first in her class right through school. She got the second rank in B.Com in Mumbai University, securing 90 per cent marks. It was very tough for Jayakumar to bring up the kids with his meagre income driving an auto, until Prema started earning a small allowance doing her articleship with Kishore Seth and Company during her CA preparation. The first daughter had studied only up to school final before Jayakumar got her married off.
Asked if the crowded environment in the chawl distract her while preparing for the tough CA exam, Prema said, “Nothing would disturb if one is strongly focused.”