Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide
Whenever I think about my past, I feel ashamed of what I was. Currently, I am a reputed rank-holder media student who has topped the semesters twice, but back then it was not the case. I was a failure when I was in eighth standard in school. I failed both in mathematics as well as science, mysteriously passed in social science.
My parents were concerned about my future, but they never forced me to study. If I compare my present with my past, then I would realize that giving up on the goals is a trap of mindset and not a matter of your life. But some stories make me wonder, what would be my future if I gave up on my dreams?
Today, I was reading two headlines in The Indian Express newspaper, and I got shocked witnessing two news of similar category but with horrifying differences. One headline stated, ‘Parents should not treat a child’s report card as a visiting card, says PM Modi at PPC 2024’.
In this, during the seventh edition of Pariksha Pe Charcha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged students to focus on competing with themselves rather than comparing with their peers. He also advised parents not to treat their children's report cards as their personal visiting cards, emphasizing the negative impact of early competitiveness.
Modi urged parents to refrain from comparing their children and cautioned against using their children's achievements as a means to showcase their own success, especially for those who may not have been successful in their own lives. This concern of PM Modi over the rising intolerance of student’s pressure on the competition can be noticed.
But the main issue states that not only parents but the students nowadays enjoy this competition and give rise to self-doubt if they cannot achieve their goals, and this is something really unacceptable for our future generation.
In the early hours of Monday in Kota, Rajasthan, an 18-year-old girl, Niharika Solanki, tragically took her own life, citing the inability to clear the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) as the reason in a note she left behind. Niharika, who lived with her parents, was actively preparing for the upcoming JEE scheduled for January 31. The Deputy Superintendent of Police in Kota, Dharamveer Singh, reported that the note expressed her feelings of being a failure and the belief that suicide was her last resort since she couldn't succeed in the JEE.
Niharika's father, employed as a bank security guard, has two other daughters, and the incident occurred within the jurisdiction of the Borkhera police station in Kota, a region known for a significant number of suicides among individuals preparing for competitive exams. Can you believe that an eighteen-year-old ends her life in fear?
Her father works as a security guard at a bank; maybe this would be a reason for her pressure to provide for the betterment of her family, but this action is horrifying for anyone. The recent tragedy involving Niharika Solanki marks the second suicide in Kota this year. In the previous week, a resident of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh reportedly took his own life, and like Niharika, he was also engaged in preparations for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).
Kota witnessed approximately 30 student suicides last year, highlighting the concerning trend of mental health challenges among individuals preparing for competitive exams in the city. I am shocked by imagining the rage of emotions they had in their minds while deciding to take this step.
The note she left behind stated, “Mummy, Papa, I can’t do JEE, SO I suicide, I am a loser. I am the worst daughter, yehi last option he.” Think for a second how tremendous her mindset was and how many emotions she kept digging within her. There are many men out there who keep working to provide for their family and keep suffocating throughout their lives.
As a student, success or failure is nothing but a phase in my life and would never give up on my goals over this suffocation. I pray for the well-being of her family and request every reader that life is full of suffocations, do not let these suffocations eat you and force you to end your precious life. Hustle every day and watch your goals fulfilled. Jai Hind!