Women mourn at the memorial. Telegraph picture

Kumbakonam, July 16: Fire, the mass killer, was banished from this town this morning. Only the candles continued to burn at the memorial to the dead children.

Homes in Kumbakonam would not light their stoves. It was a kitchen fire that spread to the thatched roofs of the Sri Krishna Primary and High School, killing 94 children this day a year ago.

Class II student Vijay is one of the “lucky” 18 whom the blaze touched but spared. It gave the nine-year-old the twisted gait of a man ten times his age.

Walking beside local MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, he dragged himself with difficulty, the scars smeared across one half of his body, from the face downwards to the right arm, his skin mottled with eruptions.

The Union petroleum minister led a silent procession of parents, seemingly numbed by the tragedy, from the sacred Mahamaham tank to the school on Kasi Raman Street to pay homage to the victims on the first anniversary of their death.

As they reached the locked school gate, the dam broke. Fathers in black shirts wept and mothers beat their breasts and wailed inconsolably.

At the sight of the memorial ? a triangular stone slab rising from a sea of flower petals ? some of the women fainted.

Others searched eagerly for one familiar face from among the rows of laminated pictures pasted on a billboard above the stone. Some of them got up on their toes to plant a kiss on a photograph, then banged their heads against it.

Classmates of the dead came from the town and nearby villages. “Jayalakshmi was such a lovely girl; she was so popular in our street,” sobbed Class III student Kalaichelvi, who had skipped school on the day of the fire.

Watching it all, Aiyar, for a full 30 minutes, seemed unable to find his voice. As the parents calmed down somewhat and the bhajans began, he joined in, repeating the words after the main singer.