Market Mayhem Takes Its Toll

Most of you would have read about the gruesome murder-suicide in an Indian-American family in Los Angeles.

In a suicide note, Karthik Rajaram wrote that he had considered killing only himself because of his financial troubles, but decided to take his family with him.

Mr. Rajaram, 45, shot his wife, three sons and mother-in-law in their bedrooms over the weekend, the police said, then shot himself.

Indira Parthasarathy, 72, who was friends with Mr. Rajaram’s wife, Subasri, 39, and her mother, Indra Ramasehan, 69, said the couple’s three sons were standout students. Two of them, Ganesha, 12, and Arjuna, 7, attended schools near their home, and the eldest, Krishna, 19, was in his second year at the University of California, Los Angeles, taking business and economics classes.(Link)

When I forwarded this news article to few people yesterday, little did I realize that my parents would come back with their own connection with the grief-stricken family. It has emerged that Karthik Rajaram’s father and Subasri’s father worked for the same Public Sector Bank where my parents worked. Their dad’s held senior positions in the bank and are now retired. Subasri’s dad had returned back from the US only recently.

Financial distress is leading to many such murder-suicides in well-off educated families. Not too long ago, a British millionaire also took a similar approach and killed his wife and daughter.

Let’s hope that people will behave more responsibly instead of resorting to such drastic measures that ruin an entire family.