On a lonely afternoon in September 2006 Prakash (name changed), a student of an engineering college, consumed 40 sleeping pills on a university campus. Reason? He could not face his father and tell him that he had failed his fourth semester exams.
“I love my Dad. I could not tell him that I had flunked all my papers. I could not admit the reason behind it,” said Prakash, who now runs a family business. “My cousins had begun to influence me into attending parties.
I began to bunk a lot of classes and cigarettes had begun to rule my life. It was too much. I felt like it would not make a difference to anyone if I lived or died. My parents would simply suffer more because of me,” he said.
He had started giving indirect clues to friends and cousins about ending life. The semester results were announced. “I told my cousin that I wanted to go away for a bit and when he checked my bag out of suspicion, he found eight strips of sleeping pills.
But he did not know I had another five strips hidden in another zip. ” “It (Ending life) felt like the easy way out. I thought eople would just feel bad for a few months and get on.
But after this episode, my parents have not asked about it. “My father is my reason. I decided that I will live for him,” he says with a smile.