PETALING JAYA: He aspired to be a movie director and Kethan Kumar’s imagination even caught the attention of a famed American director who saw the potential in the boy.
Kethan had been writing a movie script and had flown to Los Angeles on a private jet from Austin, Texas, to meet his hero, director/producer Tim Burton, on Feb 23 last year on the eve of the Academy Awards event.
Sadly, the final chapter could not be written – the 11-year-old who was about to enter sixth grade at the St Andrews Episcopal School in Austin lost his battle with leukaemia on Friday.
Kethan, born to Malaysian parents Lokesh Duraiappah and Sumithra Thavarajah in the Texan capital, has left his mark on the community there.
Burton, known for his dark and quirky take on horror and fantasy-style movies, paid tribute to the boy in a eulogy read out at a memorial service at the McGill Chapel on Sunday.
“The moment you meet Kethan, you are changed,” he wrote, adding that the boy had made a lasting impression on him in that one meeting.
Close family friend Prof Bernard Arulanan-dam, who is also Malaysian-born and based in Texas, said Burton had praised Kethan for his knowledge on the movie-making world.
Gary Thompson, who sits on the US Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) national representatives board, also spoke of the huge impact Kethan had had on him.
They met at a reception hosted by a former St Andrews principal, as Thompson’s daughter Kyla was due to start first grade with Kethan in 2008.
“When I heard he was fighting cancer just like my wife was fighting a recurrence of her breast cancer, something stirred inside of me.
“When I met him, his smile and his glow and his warmth quite simply changed me,” he said in his eulogy.
Kethan was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2006.
He had several episodes of remission and relapses throughout his eight-year battle with the disease.
After his second relapse in May 2012, Kethan found a silver lining after he discovered a love for drawing.
“I kind of look at it that way – like if I didn’t relapse, I wouldn’t have found out that I love drawing,” he said in a video entitled “Kethan’s Story” on YouTube.
Mourners wore bright colours to honour his love for rainbows, while multi-coloured balloons were released after the memorial service.
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