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| In his final and extremely moving note Rohit transcends his bitterness and gets philosophical. |
January 19, 2016, NewsCrunch
An expelled Dalit student Rohith Vemula hanged himself on Sunday morning at a hostel room in Hyderabad University campus.
Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, and 4 others, have been booked for abetting his suicide. The Minister had written a letter to his HRD counterpart, Smriti Irani, about anti-national politics of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) at the campus. Rohith was a key member of ASA and called it family.
He was a son of a security guard from Guntur district. Following expulsion, Rohith's stipend of Rs 25,000 was reportedly stopped. His family struggled to support him, running up debts.
Rohith was a second year PhD student, who wanted to be a writer like Carl Sagan.
His suicide note brings out his romance with the stars and a writing skill that is surprisingly, for an amateur, polished.
In his final and extremely moving note, Rohit transcends his bitterness and gets philosophical.
"I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense,"he notes.
As you read on, you will find that Rohith's final letter makes perfect sense for the world he left behind.
Good morning,
I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me, loved me and treated me very well.
I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.
I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.
The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.
I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood
loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.
May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some
people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.
I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this. People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death
stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds.
If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him
Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive.
Uma anna, sorry for using your room for this thing. To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future.
For one last time,
Jai Bheem
I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself.
No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act. This is my decision and
I am the only one responsible for this.
Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.
(No Name)
(This note was reportedly found by the Police in the room, where Rohith's body was found. It made its way to Scribd.)