Trigger warning: This post contains a story about suicide attempt. If you get triggered, please do not read it. If you are feeling suicidal, here are some places you can make a call. Please don't hesitate.

Aasra: 9820466726, http://www.aasra.info/helpline.html

iCall: 9152987821, https://icallhelpline.org/

Tele Manas: 18008914416, https://telemanas.mohfw.gov.in/#/home

The postcard must have reached her brother. He called my father and urged him to take strict action to stop all these mails and postcards. The office at the Institute, sensing some danger, called my father too. So, one day, when I opened my door, I see my father. He comes in and sits with me. I see he is crying. I tell him that the Institute officials are not doing their job in a proper way and have put me in trouble. Tears are rolling down his eyes. It gets me angry that instead of solving my problem, the faculty had called my father. I suspect foul play here.

My father asks me to take a bath. I have not bathed for few days now. I take a bath with my clothes on and later when I change and put the clothes in the sun to dry, he praises me for washing them. He takes me to the mall to buy me new clothes. I am silent the whole time, in conversation with the people in my mind. We come back. My father lives in another room in the adjoining dorm. He looks sad at the turn of events. The son who the fortune teller, during the time of his birth had foretold, will be the sun and bearer of the fortune of the whole family, has turned out to be sick. He listens to what I have to say. I do not tell him about the stories in my mind. It is forbidden to discuss this with people in real life. I try to tell him through my mind to get away from this place. I look for his facial expressions and they change. It meant he hears me through his mind. Maybe he will leave.

A colleague of mine, who had my mother’s number, also messaged her and asked her to come. She is in her hometown fighting her case all by herself with financial support from me. In a few days, my mother is here too. My parents together are India and Pakistan. They cannot stand each other. They have to stay at the same place, in the same room. This is an anxious thing for me. I heard later that my father also beat my mother and blamed her for this trouble she had bought on them. My mother starts cooking for me on the induction stove she has bought with her. I start having my lunch because of this.

The people in my mind are bad to me. It is getting worse every day. Everybody is blaming me for the circumstances. I have no voice in this. Except a few people, I have no support. Now even the writer and director are angry at me. They want me to speak about this chip to my parents. They want me and my family to bring it out into the world. My Counsellor and psychoanalyst also urge me to discuss this with my family and bring it to the fore. They show me the benefits of it all. How this could help the millions of people who have this chip!

The others in my mind say that if I go public, they will finish my whole family. I think hard about it using all my residual mental resources. I decide against it. I will not be the one to bring my family to suffer dire consequences. I ask the people in my mind to meet me in some way in real life and discuss this with me. But none of them are willing to meet. They say it is me who is in this trouble, so the onus is on me to get out of it.

My refusal angers them. The writer, the director, the Counsellor and the psychoanalyst turn against me. They call me a weak man, someone who has no courage to do the right thing. The others laugh at this. Now there is no one in my support in my mind. The female leader goes further to say that I am an absolute loser. I have not been able to get anything I wanted. Not even the girl I loved. The faculty have helped me finish my thesis. That some of them have transferred their knowledge to me. Otherwise, I, a good for nothing man, would not have been able to do this work either. She says that I do not deserve to live in this world, given my incompetence. Everybody else supports her assertion.

My death, they say, would cure all the problems. They, who are all competent and able, will live their lives in peace. That The-light could go about her business. There would be no trouble. All the trouble is because of my incompetency, because my mind got split. They say the Institute would be better not having a disgraceful student like me. It is a sentiment echoed by everybody in my mind including The-light. She nods her head every time the faculty speaks. The head of the Hindu organization says that my family would be out of trouble if I died. There are forty-three people in me then. Everybody sneezes, one by one.

I am full of dejection. All the anger in me has boiled off. There is none of it. There is a sense of meaning coming into me. As they urge me to think about it, I am in no position to think. The voices have made it clear. For the last two and half years, I have been talking to them, trying to find the solution for my problems. I have failed in every effort I took. I have failed the faculty, my family, and failed The-light. Nobody wants to talk to me in real life. Nobody would take me out of this trouble I had fallen into. It is better if I am not present in this world. I will get rid of this life which has turned into such a disappointment. It is time for me to die.   

Killing yourself is not an easy thing. The-light joked that I will mess this up too. I am determined to prove her wrong this one time, to show that I am not so incompetent. I sit on the chair, trying to think about my incumbent death. How should I die, what is the best way for me to go out of this world? My confidence levels are so low, I have a feeling that she is right, that I am going to mess this up too.

[Some text removed. Please call the above numbers or consult your counsellor or psychiatrist if you are feeling suicidal]

Dear reader, I know this description is gross. When a man is in a bottomless pit, with no hope of any sunshine whatsoever, the immediate option is to say goodbye. At least this is what I thought and was repeatedly reminded by my voices. I go out with little money, cross the road, enter the market, and bring these two chemicals. I come back to my room, mix them in a big container, and keep the mixture on my table for consumption.

I have to write a suicide letter. I do not know where to start and where to end and whom to address it to. So finally, I decide to write a one-line letter to my father. I tell him I am dying and the blame should go to The Professor. I send him this email. I gulp down a poison unable to finish the whole volume. My neck and stomach have started burning. Then I start losing my senses. I vomit but nothing is coming out of my mouth except a burning sensation. Somebody knocks on the door and enters. For some reason, I have left it open. They put their fingers in my mouth and make me vomit a little bit. I am in a semi-conscious state. They take me in an auto and to a hospital where I am laid on a bed. I have lost consciousness by then and only wake up two days later, alive. The-light was right, I have been unable to kill myself.