THE UNEDITED VERSION
The suicide attempt of a young post-graduate pursuing anaesthesiology now battling for her life is unfortunate but more so is the huge politics now colouring the issue. For a start, the strict and sometimes harsh behaviour of a senior towards a junior during a medical residency program is almost a universal phenomenon. Most of the doctors go through this process of discipline and exposure to harsh remarks without fail and it is almost a normal part of their professional training. This is like the internal discipline in the armed forces training which to an outsider may appear highly brutal and almost inhuman. There are, of course, many understood limits but exceptions do exist where the limits may cross. However, such instances are extremely rare.
Suicide is a very serious issue and many times it is more about the individual rather than anything else. In a medical career of almost a decade starting from my MBBS entry to the end of my specialization, I saw almost a suicide each year which included my juniors, colleagues, and seniors. The routes of suicide were horrifyingly dissimilar and reasons were hugely varied but the problem in each case was that the person could not handle the stress of problems happening at a personal or professional level. The way forward of course is to constantly counsel the students and young populations to handle pressure and to make them strong to receive the setbacks of life. But pre-emptive measures to identify highly sensitive persons who will fall off the edge at a seemingly trivial trigger point appear difficult at present.
Hence, depressingly, as long as the human mind is in the present state of evolution, the negative aspects of society like crime, murder, rape, and suicides will stay though thankfully uncommon. There will perhaps be more stories of determination, will to succeed, and a fight against adverse circumstances. With extreme sympathy towards the young doctor battling her life the heart also goes out for the boy as what could be a simple open and shut case, whole new dimensions of group and religious identities enter the fray.
The cacophonous narratives of ‘love jihad’, ‘atrocity acts’, ‘minority victimhood’, and ‘religious protection’ will ensure that truth will have a burial. From the experience of a long medical career, it could simply be a case of personal and professional interaction gone horribly wrong without any connections to sexual harassment, caste, or religion. But let the agencies conduct their investigations in peace to know the truth. We are unfortunately living in an increasingly polarised society and hence issues which were never important while tackling the problem of depression and suicide in the past are becoming prominent. The trial by media and the involvement of politics and group identities is sad to say the least.
RANDOM MUSINGS 