Extreme escape attempts: Investigating suicide in contemporary Hindi fiction

Abstract

Suicide is a serious global public health problem and India’s suicide death rates are among the highest in the world. In recent decades, the depiction of voluntary deaths (Hindi ātmahatyā) has become a quite common ingredient of Hindi fiction. Yatish in Ṭ-ṭā profesar, Anisa in Dāstān-e-lāptā, Sapam in Pīlī chatrī vālī laṛkī, and Jharna in Ek naukrānī kī ḍāyrī, to mention a few examples, are some of the characters who decide to escape from their lives. Who are these people, and what role do suicides play in the narratives? Why are they so common? The paper attempts to answer these questions by linking some recent works of Hindi fiction with media reporting and data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau.