CHENNAI: The death of Shahal Kormath has shocked IIT-Madras fraternity with students and faculty remembering him as a strong individual capable of handling his problems rationally.
“The takeaway from this disastrous incident is to come out and speak about your problems and seek help. There is no shame in that,” said a student representative, explaining that the institution has a proactive guidance and counselling wing to help students with their problems.
It is learnt that Kormath had isolated himself in the last few days and had not sought help from the guidance and counselling wings of the institution and had rather chosen to speak to only a few close friends.
While students refuse to pin his suicide to just one narrative, the management told Express that Kormath was affected by a dip in his grades over the last two semesters and his lack of attendance.
“The dean had spoken to him about his dipping grades and he was very receptive and was taking steps to pull them up,” said IIT-Madras director, Bhaskar Ramamurthi, condemning the incident and reiterating the institution’s commitment toward offering students a way out of depression.
“Kormath seems to have bottled up his problems whatever they were and it could have been avoided. We don’t want this to happen to any of our students,” he said.
IIT-Madras has a concept of mentors and students buddies who are assigned to students in their first year in the institution to combat any sort of uneasiness and help students settle in. Students said this concept could be extended to ensure that those who develop problems later on can also come out.
“Shahal was going through something but we never knew it would escalate like this,” said one of his friends.
Mentors, buddies
IIT-Madras has a concept of mentors and students buddies who are assigned to students in their first year in the institution to combat any sort of uneasiness