Risky selfie snaps short young life

In a narrow bylane on James Street in Poona mallee, a group of teenage boys huddled together. They looked distraught, shock and worry writ large on their faces. These school boys were trying to come to terms with the death of their friend, S Dinesh Kumar, who was run over by a train on Sunday while he was trying to take a selfie.
They called him `Dheena'.Known for his dribbling skills on the football field, he now lay in a glass coffin outside his house. The sound of the funereal conch and heart wrenching wails of his loved ones filled the Monday afternoon air.

As soon as his body reached his house after postmortem in Chromepet General Hospital, a stream of students from the school came to pay their last respects.
It was a routine weekend outing for 16-year-old Class 11 student Dinesh and his seven friends. They had taken the bus to Vandalur zoo. In the evening, after having a good time at the zoo, they were returning home. They were walking toward the Vandalur train station and took a detour and walked on the railway tracks. “Last week, he received a WhatsApp image of a selfie taken in front of a train. He wanted to replicate that with his new smartphone,“ one of his relatives said. Unfortu nately, Dinesh failed to gauge the speed of the Chennai Beach Chengalpattu suburban train.
The train hit him and he died on the spot, police said.
His friends, who had accompanied Dinesh, said they warned him of the approach ing train and told him to jump off the tracks but in vain.
Dinesh's father, Sugumar, is an employee of a private courier firm in Poonamallee and his mother a homemaker. His elder brother is a Class 12 student in Arignar Anna Government Higher Secondary School in Poonamallee, where Dinesh, a commerce student, also studied. The school is a stone's throw away from his modest home on James Street.
As soon as his body reached his house after postmortem in Chromepet General Hospital, a stream of students from the school came to pay their last respects.
“He was a very jovial fellow. Before school every day , he and his friends used to deliver newspapers to earn some pocket money ,“ his classmate Prashanth said. His teachers said Dinesh was very popular in school. He was above-average in studies and a very good sportsman. “Whenever we reprimanded him for his mistakes, he would immediately take corrective steps. He was disciplined,“ a teacher said.
The grief is shared by one and all, but many also shared their concern about the selfie craze.
“This should be a wake-up call to others who want to try such stunts,“ a policeman and relative of Dinesh said.