Book Excerpt: The City of Broken Dreams

Rahul Akshith

Rahul Akshith is an Indian writer from Chennai, with a background in economics and a passion for storytelling that blends emotional depth with real-world issues. A graduate of Madras School of Economics, Rahul has explored themes ranging from loss of innocence to personal resilience to the socio-political dynamics of modern India. His second and most recent novel, The City of Broken Dreams, is set in Kota against the backdrop of educational apathy, student suicides, and the exploitation of the system.

The City of Broken Dreams is available on Notion Press, Amazon and Flipkart.

EXCERPT (FROM CHAPTER 1)

THE SEVENTH SUICIDE

It was raining heavily. Adithi woke up in her room, feeling sweaty and irritated after having a disturbed sleep thanks to the slow-rotating ceiling fan when she heard her iPhone X buzz on the wooden table beside her bed. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, widened the collars of her t-shirt to let more air pass through to her sweaty neck, and took her phone unsteadily. She picked up the call and brought the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” she mumbled.

“This is Constable Premanand from the Kota Main Police Station,” a hushed voice whispered.

Adithi’s eyes flew open and her voice was immediately clearer, breaking off the shackles of sleep. “Good morning, sir.”

“We have another suicide in BEST. A boy. 17 years old.”

Fuck, Adithi sighed. “OK, sir, I’ll be there.”

She cut the call and kept her phone down, jumping out of the bed swiftly.

∞

Fifteen minutes later, Adithi’s second-hand scooter stopped on the road outside the BCA Kota campus after creating multiple ripples amidst the flowing waters. The police had already arrived and were setting up barricades against the gates of the academy. Her oversized light-brown raincoat protected her from the rain as she got out of her vehicle, switched off the engine, parked the vehicle, stuffed the key inside the pocket of her jeans, and started towards the expansive campus of BEST Coaching Academy, aka, the BCA.

Her brown eyes surveyed the expansive campus of BEST– a huge set of iron gates in red seemed most unwelcoming to her, beyond which lay a lush, green expansive lawn with flowering shrubs and trees lined up on the edge. A forty-foot-high high-mast light pole was situated at the center of the lawn, emitting a harsh orange light that seemed demoralizing and daunting to Adithi.

Behind the light post lay an enormous, sandal-colored building about 5 floors high constructed in Bauhaus architecture. But what was different here was the style of designs they’d chosen for the windows and the doors– the roof was flat and symmetric while the arches were gothic and gave the present situation an even more aggressive outlook.

The betel-chewing police inspector of Kota Main police station–a fat, short man called Devi Pratap Singh–was getting out of his white-colored jeep when he noticed and instantly recognized the familiar figure of Adithi approaching him. The yellow light from the streetlight lit her dimly to reveal her high cheekbones, straight black hair that stopped midway between her shoulders and waist, and a lean figure with an attitude to never give up. She might have been attractive to Devi had she not irritated and frustrated him by asking the same questions every single time but only expected different answers from him each time.

Avoiding the woman’s gaze, Devi turned away from her direction and swore under his breath, exasperated.

“This bitch…”

“Good morning, sir,” was Adithi’s greeting as she neared Devi, pulling the raincoat over her tightly as the rain poured down intensely. “Could you probably give me a little insight as to what’s going on?”

“Who notified her?” he asked the constable who rushed out of the back of the inspector’s jeep and held an umbrella over Devi’s head.

“No idea, sir!” the man shouted back over the sound of the rain as the two of them started towards the gates of the institution.

“Sir! Sir!” Adithi jogged along. “Could you possibly divulge the information of the victim?”

Victim? Devi thought. A coward unable to live through 2 years of hardship?

“Not yet,” Devi responded, taking a moment to sound diplomatic as they continued walking along the cream-colored compound walls and toward the gates, not caring to meet Adithi’s eye. “We’re yet to see what has happened, and forensic teams are arriving. Only then can we get a conclusive picture of what is what, and only then will we notify you.”

“This is the seventh suicide in two months in this institution,” Adithi said hurriedly. “What can we expect from your side?”

Devi frowned and stopped, turning around to face Adithi. “Ms. Sharma, I have answered this question of yours already, multiple times, in this exact same place. I refuse to answer it again.”

“So you still stand by, ‘This is a private institution, and we are not privy or authorized to take action on them just because one among the hundred feel the pressure of education?’” she motioned the air quotes hurriedly with her fingers.

“I am sorry to the parents of the deceased for their losses,” the inspector said, changing his tone quietly, “but this is bound to happen.”

“How do you say that?”

“The population is increasing!” Devi couldn’t help but get slightly agitated and animated. “It’s only natural that the competition increases with that! And some of them aren’t capable of competing with the others, however blunt that sounds. And what happens when people aren’t able to face competition? Self-loathing. Self-pity. It gets bottled up here, in the heart, and in the mind. And when it explodes, it explodes in the form of someone hanging from their neck tied to a fan.”

He paused, taking a few breaths to calm himself down, and looked at her. “And this is not me speaking– ask any student inside this campus, and this is what you will hear.”

“How can I ask a student when I’ve never been allowed to enter the campus in the first case?” Adithi asked back sharply.

“That is between you and the campus’s management,” Devi snorted and continued walking.

“Be that as it may, but a life is a life,” Adithi jogged along, touching the compound walls protectively to avoid slipping. “Don’t you think the safety of the students should be prioritized? After all, they are what we all proclaim, ‘Future of our nation.’”

“Oh, you want a philosophy class, ma’am?” Inspector Devi turned around sharply to face her. “Well, then come to the police station at 9:00 PM today, just before closing time. And bring your phone or notes or whatever.”

He walked into the gates of the campus, leaving a frustrated Adithi to be bathed in the pouring rain and the red and blue lights from the sirens of the police cars.

∞

“The victim’s name is Rajpal Kumari,” Devi held up a 5×7-inch photo of the 17-year-old boy to the mass of journalists gathered before him at the large hall of the Kota Main police station. The boy’s sheepish grin passed cold shivers along Adithi’s back, who sat in the center of the middle row of the gathering. He had an innocent face, his eyes black and large, and his hair cut short.

Devi gave an introduction about the boy, which was supposedly information gained from the boy’s classmates and family. Then, he offered condolences to the family on behalf of the coroners and the police. He then read about the jurisdiction and other such formalities.

“I will now read the autopsy report,” the inspector cleared his throat to the gathering, opening a blue file placed on the table before his seat.

“Cause of death,” the inspector announced, “is death by hanging. The tongue was found to be protruded and dry. The suspension resulted in Cerebral hypoxia – which means deprival of oxygen in the brain – and decreased muscle tone around the neck. The time of the death is predicted from 1:42 A.M. to 1:54 A.M. The tools used for the hanging are a blue-colored towel and a wooden chair. At 4:05 A.M., the body was found by the warden of the boys’ hostel of the BEST Coaching Academy, Kota, Mr. Rajath Kriplani, when he broke open the door of the victim’s room after getting no response to the wake-up call.

“The police arrived by 4:26 A.M. The forensics arrived by 4:45 A.M., and following the confirmation that the victim was dead, the police contacted the victim’s parents and relatives, who belong to the Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh. They arrived at 11:39 A.M. The body was handed back to the parents by 3:50 P.M. after autopsy and embalming. They have taken it back to their town for the funeral. The coroners for this case have not requested an investigation, and neither have the parents.”

He closed the file that he was reading from, his bald head shining from the orange-emitting tube light attached to the wall behind. None of the people present talked or asked anything– everything was covered.

An hour or so later, Adithi exhaled and leaned back on her couch in the quiet comfort of her rented apartment– it had been a long day. She already slept only for four hours a day, and today had been worse. But she didn’t feel exhausted. She felt like something was stirring— both inside her and in the city. She couldn’t figure out what, but she sensed that all these suicides were omens for something brewing in Kota.

But what… she mused, closing her eyes and listening quietly to the sound of the raindrops against the walls and windows. She knew the suicides in Kota had begun in the late 2000s and had started becoming prevalent ever since 2016. Some of the students who had died left suicide notes, almost all of which stated parental, institutional, and competitional pressure as the main reasons for their disastrous decisions. But seven suicides in two months in the same institution as compared to three suicides in twelve months from all the other institutes combined… It concerned her a great deal.

Adithi wrote all her pulsating thoughts in her blog later that night, her head resting against the headrest of her single-cot bed as rain splashed against the building. Her chocolate-brown eyes scanned her words one last time to confirm the content before publishing it:

I haven’t gained the courage to talk to the parents of a dead student, nor have I gained access to meet the students inside the campus of BEST coaching academy. What happens to them inside right now, only they know. As I wrote in my previous blog, all the alumni of this institute are quite content with it and, while agreeing that the rules and regulations are stricter than any other institution and the competition is extremely severe, also say that there was nothing else present that could have led to suicides. I don’t consider myself a superhero, or even a hero, but if there is something known as ‘human intuition’ that is true, then mine is ringing louder than a church bell. Maybe it’s more about the humanity inside me that is genuinely caring about this loss of life right near me in the very city I live in, but in the interest and care of the students who deserve to have a good life, I pray and strive to act in diligence and with tenacity. Any help will be extremely appreciated.

She distanced her fingers from the keyboard, pushed her circular glasses up her nose, read it once more, and sighed. Her concentration drifted to that stretch of the day when she had witnessed the parents of Rajpal receiving their son’s body– it hadn’t been an easy sight to watch for Adithi– amidst crushing rain, the parents horrified and crying for their son to return as they clutched his immobile shoulders and wailed. Adithi had felt more soaked by their tears than by the rain.

She pulled her hair into a bandanna and clicked the ‘enter’ button on her laptop, and the blog was published. She sighed again and looked outside the glass windows, the sound of the raindrops falling on them like drums and beats in the theme music of a movie. Her gaze fluttered over to the lightning beyond, lighting up the swaying trees and electric cables terrifyingly.

Something was about to happen. Something big. She just didn’t know what or how. Or how soon.