A 16-year-old swimming champion with over 100 medals to her credit allegedly committed suicide at her residence in Govind Puram, Ghaziabad, late on Sunday night. National level swimmer Saira Sirohi hanged herself and committed the suicide.
Saira, with dreams of representing India at the Olympics, stunned many with her feat of swimming for 15 non-stop hours and covering a distance of 38kms, when she was only 8 years old. she was a promising talent and had won several medals and honours at national championships for her school and state. A few years from now, she could have represented India in the Olympics as a swimmer, if only; our country’s obsession with grades didn’t stub her to death.
Saira, who lived with her parents and 11-year-old sister in Govindpuram, studied humanities in Class XI at a reputable private school in Ghaziabad. Saira was weighed down by worries about her academics, according to her family and swimming coach.
“She had her glass of milk before retiring to her room. Before that, she was chatting freely with us. At 1.30 am, my younger daughter started crying loudly. I thought someone had entered the house and rushed to their room. But I couldn’t open the door easily though it had not been bolted from inside. When I managed to push it open, I found Saira had hanged herself from the grille above the door. I brought her down and put her on the bed but she was cold and stiff,” said a shaken Jaideep Sirohi, her father.
“She fastened the stole to a grille above the door of her room and had placed her school bag near the door and climbed on it to tie the knot and hang herself, ” he added. Jaideep (52), a former constable with UP police, had taken voluntary retirement two years ago to help her daughter chase her dream of representing India in the Olympics.
“Saira was playing a game on her phone. She told she will study for an hour or so and then sleep. I felt thirsty in the middle of the night and woke up. That’s when I found Saira hanging against the door. I began shouting for my father and mother,” Saira’s 11-year-old sister said. Except concern about the half-yearly exams she had missed and was currently appearing for, there was nothing unusual about her recent behaviour. She had shown no sign of being under stress and had chatted freely with my aunt who visited our house last night,” she recalled.
“She had been telling me she won’t come for training for more than a month because she was afraid her school would fail her in her exams,” her coach Raju Chaudhary said. “She said if she failed, she would be rusticated. She had appeared in three papers which she had missed owing to her championships. She was scheduled to appear in the fourth paper on Monday. There was nothing amiss about her behaviour,” Chaudhary added. Saira trained at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi under her Chaudhary.
However, Jyoti Gupta, the principal of Saira’s school said that they had put no pressure on the girl. Saira had backlog as she had not been regular due to her swimming. She had finished appearing in three back papers on January 21. She had also appeared in an assessment of speaking and listening test on Saturday which was for all students of Class XI. On Monday, she was to appear in a unit test that was scheduled for the entire school,” Gupta said.
Saira is just one example. There are a lot of other kids in our country who die every day trying to cope with academic pressure. How many more Sairas will it take for India to realize that not everyone of us have the same skills and interests.