The Kota Life

Lakhs of young students arrive in Kota every year with dreams in their eyes. These dreams turn into nightmares for many students and their families

- Shreya Basak

IN the Talwandi area of Kota stands the Radha Krishna temple, which is frequented by students, not only to seek blessings before their exams but to express their innermost feelings. Scribbled on the ‘walls of wishes’ inside the temple are sentences like ‘Please fulfil my father’s wish, make me the first doctor of my family’ or ‘I hope not to disappoint my parents this time’.

The temple administration allows these students to scribble. They simply re-paint the walls after a few months so that more students can use them to express their fears, anger, frustration, disappointment, dejection, stress or mental pressure. The cycle continues. Just like the cycle of lakhs of aspiring doctors and engineers arriving in Kota, year after year, and some of these young students succumbing to the unimaginable pressure and dying by suicide, year after year—18 deaths in 2019, 20 in 2018, seven in 2017, 17 in 2016, 18 in 2015. In 2023, there have already been 23 deaths by suicide.

The competition is killing. Hundreds of billboards jostling for space on the streets of Kota is proof. The aim of the coaching centres spread across the city is to sell to lakhs of students aiming for medical and IIT seats an unrealistic dream—that they can crack NEET and JEE. These dreams often turn into nightmares once the gruelling sessions begin.