In a heartening gesture, mere hours after second-year student Birbal Koizora Debbarma of IMA Language Sciences at the University Of Hyderabad allegedly jumped from the third floor of his hostel, half an hour past midnight, childhood friends and bandmates from Agartala are raising funds to pay his medical bills. And it's mostly through WhatsApp.
Tiprasa Diaries was the band that Birbal was a guitarist with back home, before coming to Hyderabad. A friend and bandmate of his (who did not wish to be named) said over chat, "The funds will be collected from local colleges and universities, as well as from wellwishers who would like to contribute. We have also informed former classmates from the Montfort School in Tripura where he studied till 2016." The friend also added that he had not taken it very seriously until he got a call from Birbal's sister, "When I was on the way to college, his sister called me. She was crying and told me that he fell pretty badly and I was shocked," he said.
Birbal was apparently quite depressed, going by what his family has told his friends. "He spoke to his mom on Monday morning and asked her to send him a Bible - both the Old and the New Testaments. He kept asking his mother to come and take him home because he desperately wanted to come back. He was planning to come home before his exams and even booked his flight tickets," revealed the friend, clearly in a lot of distress. That's a flight that Birbal may not be able to make soon.
News of his accident reached Agartala through a WhatsApp group of old school friends and while the cops say it is an attempted suicide, his friends are choosing to believe that he fell by accident. Shockingly, the last Facebook message he posted, which incidentally was minutes before his fall, reads "I feel like my life ain't mine. Who can relate?" Posted at 12:36 am, it is suggestive that he may have been depressed and was going through emotional turmoil.
His father, Roni Chandra Debbarma is reportedly on his way from Tripura and is expected to reach on Wednesday morning. Having suffered a dislocated leg, severe head injuries and a torn finger, the cost of his surgeries is enormous for his family to bear. Knowing this, his friends have circulated his father's account number, to which the funds will be transferred. Why do they need the funds? The total expenditure of his surgery is believed to cost around Rs 5 lakhs, with Rs 1.5 lakh needed for a surgery on Wednesday.
"He suffered injuries to the head and fractures to limbs. He was admitted to a private hospital for treatment and will be under observation for another 24 hours," said Cyberabad police. Gachibowli police made a general diary entry about the incident as no complaint was received.
Did He Fall or Did He Jump?
While police claim that he had reportedly started showing suicidal tendencies after he failed to clear his first-year exam and that he jumped out of the window while his friends slept, mystery looms around the cause and the motive. Yet, his last Facebook post leaves behind a gloomy sign, one where a young boy was disturbed but chose to resort to the extreme.
According to Sreerag Poickadan, President of UoH's Student Union, "The Vice-Chancellor and Registrar were present at the Care Hospital, where Birbal is admitted after the incident and initiated the process of disbursing medical insurance for some other costs."
Reports have suggested that he has told the police that he dreamt that someone knocked on the door of the window and asked him to end his life. While his condition is stated to be stable now, the incident brings to the fore, once again, the lack of grievance mechanisms and awareness of psychological issues widely prevalent in campuses across the country.
