Before the final move...

According to the State Crime Records Bureau from January 2010 to November 2010, 1642 people chose to end their life in the City, which implies that four people on an average resort to suicide everyday! Out of which, 992 were men and 650 women. The preferred way of killing oneself was through the most conventional means — hanging.  Sahai, a suicide helpline operating only during daytime, receives five to seven calls on an average per day.

Spandana Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Centre, which offers 24-hour-suicide helpline, receives close to 10 to 11 calls on an average per day.

There are many others in the City who do not ask for help and take the decision impulsively.Roon Swarous (name changed), an architecture student who has tried committing suicide thrice, says that it is a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“It is not a highly thought out move, it is a sudden reaction to a problem which seems unsolvable at that point of time. All the three times, after the act, I have been mortified and immediately called my friends to save me. Now when I think of it, I know that all I had to do was talk about it. My friends are wholly responsible for me being alive today,” he added.

Roon’s case makes one wonder why the young today resort to suicide in the first place. Ayush Pathak, an event manager, says that increased competition and the inability to cope with failure are the main reasons for an increase in the number of suicides among the young.

“There is immense pressure from the society to do well. Academic as well as work-related failures are blown out of proportion. Parenting plays an important role in averting suicides. In 90 per cent of the cases, with both parents working, youngsters share a very platonic relationship with them leading to friction in times of distress. With even friendships being superficial, people have no way to let out their frustrations,” he added.
If inability to cope with either academic failure or pressures at work is a reason for suicides, Kruthika Ramesh and Shalmali Shenoy, both  students, believe that suicides have always been romanticised either in our movies or the literature we read.

 “Even to this day, I haven’t understood how someone could commit suicide after being dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend. Weirdly, it is the 25 to 26-year-old people who resort to suicide for that reason. It’s such a shame to see smart independent people resort to such cowardly act,” said Kruthika

Meena K S, a clinical psychologist, said, “There are multiple reasons for increase in suicides. Inability to give up addictive substances is one of the most common causes for suicide among young boys. Even ten-year-old kids are addicted to marijuana and ganja.
As far as girls are concerned, they usually get into relationships with the opposite sex through SMS or Internet. These friendships often lead to disastrous consequences with some of them running away from home to avoid the humiliation.The society is very unforgiving when it comes to girls and quite a few of them harm themselves when things
go wrong in a juvenile relationship.”

 Helpline numbers

*Sahai: 24497777
(from 10 am to 6 pm)
*Spandana: 65000111/65000222 (24 hours)