All India Topper - Auto driver Daughter

 "I am proud to say that I am my father's daughter," 

says Prema 

Family History

Prema Jayakumar an auto-driver daughter who resides in Mumbai was the national topper 2013. Prema’s parents, auto-rickshaw driver Jayakumar Perumal and home-maker Lingammal Jayakumar, her younger brother Dhanraj and an elder sister Mahalaxmi who has already got married.  Prema’s four-member family squeezes itself into a 300 sq ft room in S B Khan Chawl, Malad.The family is fluent in Hindi and Marathi, but sticks to Tamil whenever possible. Perumal, from Sankarapuram in Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu, first moved to Mumbai in the early 1990s and took a job at a mill, before becoming an auto-rickshaw driver, plying a hired vehicle. In 1994, Perumal got his rickshaw licence and bought his own vehicle, leading to a substantial saving. When things got tough, he sold a patch of land the family owned in their native village. For a while, Prema’s mother worked at a factory that manufactured hair clips in Vasai, but left the job four years ago for health reasons. They moved to Mumbai from Tamil Nadu around 20 years ago.

My Fee Was Never a Problem To My Family

She said, “Fees were never an issue in school or college. In my school days I used to get a scholarship, and the college fees were nominal. My father Jayakumar Perumal is from Tamil Nadu, and has been driving an auto for 20 years. My mother used to work for a private company. She stopped working when I grew up and started earning during my articleship. I also received a scholarship of Rs 40,000 from my coaching institute, so fees were never a source of worry for my parents or me.”

Her Studies

This is not her first stint on a toppers’ list: it was this determination that got her 79 per cent marks in the tenth standard, 80 per cent in the twelfth standard and later 90 per cent marks in her final year of graduation to emerge second in Mumbai University. The graduate from Nagindas Khandwala College completed her M Com from the University of Mumbai. The common proficiency test (CPT) , the integrated professional competence course (IPCC) and the CA final. Prema passed all three in one go.

Memorable moment in Life

Beaming over her success after the results were declared, she said, “The day I start working, I will ensure that my father can rest at home. He has always toiled for my welfare.” Prema, who outshone her peers in academics since her school days, scored a remarkable 607 on 800 in the CA exam.

It was an otherwise typical Monday for 25-year-old Prema Jayakumar: work, followed by teaching her third year Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) students. Then, at noon, a phone call from G. Ramaswamy, former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, changed her life.

Prema with her family

By Tuesday evening, in their small (280sq.ft), sparsely decorated home in Malad, a Mumbai surburb, Prema’s family were exhausted, having entertained reporters from various media houses all day.

Dhanraj her brother has barely had a chance to speak to his sister since the results came out on Monday, but is unwilling to share the spotlight. His own achievement—passing the CA exams at 22—is no mean feat, especially as he combined studying with a job at a Vodafone call centre as an associate for a year.“We are the most educated in our family,” he said, “and that makes us very proud.” It helped that Prema wasn’t required to do housework, she said; her mother assumed all the domestic responsibilities. “I really don’t get time to help mother with household work,” she said. “I used to leave my house at 6.30 in the morning and reach home by 10.30-11.”

 “We used to start studying at morning 7.30 and end at 11 in the night, almost the whole day, sometimes even more. Proper breaks used to be only limited to Sundays,” Dhanraj said

Prema hopes. “First of all I want my dad to rest, want to buy a house now.”

Prema says. “Now I say with my held head high that my father is an auto-driver and he did all he could to educate me and make me what I am today.” 

"They are my life; they have given me life and I want to give them rest now" says Prema.

Jayakumar perumal her father earns around 15000 per month for his work.

All he says is this: 

"I have studied only till Class V in a remote village. I didn't much understand what Prema and Dhanraj wanted to do when they said they would like to become CAs one day. But we never questioned their decisions about what they wanted to do and always stood by them."

"We would always encourage them to study whatever they wanted, the way they wanted. We always assured them that we would do all we could to help them achieve their goals in life."

The odds that the family faced gave birth to Prema's doughty determination.


"I had seen my mother and father struggle to make ends meet when we were kids. I was always determined that one day when we grew up we would have to help them with their everyday struggle," says Prema.

"Two days before the results, everybody had huge expectations from me. People would ask what rank I would get as if I had already got my rank before writing my exams. That built huge pressure on me not only to pass, but pass with good rank," she says of the nail biting moments before the results on January 21.

"When a former ICAI president called and asked if I had seen my results, I trembled with nervousness. I said I hadn't. Then he told me that I had topped the all-India CA exam. I began to cry. He asked me to hand over the phone to my father and informed him about the result," Prema recalls."My mother and I are very emotional. We always cry when we hear good or bad news. We all cried when the news broke," she adds.

In this male dominated society to those men who look down upon women as objects of their desire Prema has given an real time answer through her Achievement and she also says to women that 

"Nobody today should think that only men can make their families proud by excelling in academics or sports or any other field and take care of families. Today, women too are getting empowered because of their education and can do all things that boys can do. Girls too have begun to excel in all fields," she says convincingly.

Felicitations and Awards

In one of the rare direct appointment offers made by public sector banks, all-India chartered accountancy exam topper Prema Jayakumar has been offered a manager’s position in Indian Bank.

Prema and her brother, who also cleared the chartered accountancy exam, burned the midnight oil to come out in flying colours.

Meanwhile, political parties in Tamil Nadu are falling over one another to felicitate the young achiever. On Thursday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh to Prema.


The DMK too announced a Rs 1 lakh reward.

Prema receiving award from Jayalalitha(Tamil Nadu CM)