Disaster struck at Meten-Meer-Zorg on the West Coast Demerara yesterday when 14-year-old Vikash Mohan drowned in a koker not far from his home.
He was a Fourth Form student at the Zeeburg Secondary School. The dead boy’s father, Nirad Mohan, a former teacher, would normally tutor Vikash and his friends at their home. He said the group was expected to meet at 15:00hrs yesterday for mathematics and science lessons, but Vikash left with his fellow students around 14:30hrs for a walk along the nearby koker, saying that they would be back in time for the lessons. 
It was there that tragedy struck. The father related that the koker has a metal rail, which Vikash climbed. The boy slipped, struck his head and fell into the water, probably unconscious.
According to Mohan, the koker was closed, and so it was not difficult to pull his son from the water. He performed CPR and rushed the boy to the Best Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The bereaved father, who has two daughters, Vinita and Amrita, in their 20’s, said he had all his hopes banked on his only son. With a measure of pride, even in his immense grief, he showed this newspaper his son’s computer, books and other resources that he had provided to give him a good education.
“It is now hopeless” he lamented. “I gave him all I had.”
Outside, Vikash’s mother Nalini Mohan struggled with the reality of losing her son so suddenly. There was not a dry eye as she piteously lamented, “I nah supposed to put away my son, he supposed to put away me”.