When Pride Becomes a Coffin: The Stories India Refuses to Learn From

It was a rainy evening in Thrissur.
Faseela, 23, pregnant and hopeful, sent her mother a last message:
“I’m going to die, or they will kill me.”

Hours later, she was gone. Her husband and mother-in-law, now behind bars, had been harassing her for more dowry. Instead of baby clothes, her parents carried her body in white sheets.

This isn’t a one-off story. It’s the new normal across India. And it’s time we stop pretending it isn’t happening in our own houses.

The Exam Trap: Where Childhood is Sold for Marks

Across Kerala, parents are convinced that only two careers exist—doctor and engineer. Children are forced into coaching centres before they even discover who they are.

A boy in Thiruvananthapuram, just days before his Plus-Two board exams, took his own life. His only “crime”? Fear that he would not score high enough to please his family.

In Kota, the story is the same, only multiplied a thousand times. This year alone, more than a dozen students—bright, ambitious, but crushed—ended their lives under the shadow of NEET and JEE. Some had passed earlier exams with 90%, but 90 wasn’t good enough. Nothing is ever good enough when parents want to use children as medals in family competitions.

Parents call this “love.” Let’s be blunt—it’s not love. It’s violence with a smile.

The Dowry Fire: Burning Daughters in the Name of Tradition

In Kollam, Vipanchika Maniyan and her toddler were found dead in Sharjah. Her suicide note described years of abuse, beatings, and humiliation. Her marriage was not a partnership—it was a transaction. And when the payments slowed, her life was treated as disposable.

In Bengaluru, an Infosys engineer, pregnant and full of promise, was forced into silence by endless demands for more money. When she died, her husband tried to pass it off as fate. But it wasn’t fate. It was greed, blessed by a society that still whispers, “Dowry is just custom.”

Every day in India, twenty women die this way. Twenty families carry coffins instead of cradles.

Ragging and Cruelty: Colleges That Kill

As if exams and dowry weren’t enough, colleges add one more poison—ragging.

In Wayanad, veterinary student J. S. Sidharthan was found hanging in his hostel. He had been tortured by seniors under the mask of “fun.” In Kottayam, a nursing student was mutilated by classmates, while teachers looked the other way.

Parents send children to study, to dream. They come back in coffins.

The Common Thread Nobody Admits

Look at these stories—different victims, different ages, different states. But the thread is the same: mental cruelty wrapped in family pride and societal pressure.

• Parents compare children until they break.
• Families demand dowry until daughters collapse.
• Institutions ignore harassment until it ends in a funeral.

We call it destiny. Let’s call it what it really is: murder by silence and expectation.

What Parents Must Do—Now, Not Tomorrow

1. Stop competing through your kids. They are not your project. They are not your revenge against relatives.
2. Recognize warning signs. Silence, withdrawal, fake smiles—don’t dismiss them as “drama.” They are SOS calls.
3. Ban comparison talk at home. No more “Sharma ji ka beta.” Period.
4. Say NO to dowry, loudly. Not in whispers, not behind closed doors. Declare it. Write it on your wedding cards if you must.
5. Normalize therapy. A therapist is not shame. It’s oxygen for a suffocating mind.
6. Ask real questions. “Are you happy?” is more important than “How many marks?”

What Society Must Change

• Exam reform: Stop treating JEE and NEET as the gates to heaven. India needs artists, entrepreneurs, farmers, and thinkers—not just doctors and coders.
• Dowry fast-track courts: No more dragging cases for years while parents die waiting for justice.
• Campus accountability: Colleges must have zero tolerance for ragging. One offense, you’re out. No excuses.
• Public awareness: Stop glorifying “18 hours of study” or “lavish dowry weddings.” Start celebrating children who choose differently and families who refuse dowry.

The Brutal Moral

Yes. Because you push your children too hard, because you force them into careers they don’t want, because you treat daughters as currency—you risk losing them forever.

You won’t just lose an exam. You’ll lose a child.
You won’t just lose a marriage. You’ll lose a daughter.
You won’t just lose face. You’ll lose a life.

Your child is not your scoreboard. Your daughter is not a cheque book. Your son is not your legacy.

They are human beings. Let them breathe. Let them choose. Let them live.

👉 If you ignore this, the next funeral pyre you see may not be in the newspaper. It may be in your own courtyard.

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