‘There was no point in living life further,’ UPSC aspirant wrote in suicide note after being denied entry to exam hall

“Rules are rules, but bending them for a good purpose should be legitimate.”

These were the last words of Varun Subhash Chandran, a civil services aspirant, who committed suicide on Sunday evening after he was not allowed to enter the examination centre for walking in late.

The 28-year-old from Karnataka was four minutes late in reaching the exam centre. It was Chandran’s fourth attempt at cracking the prestigious civil services examination.

Before ending his life in his two-room apartment in Old Rajinder Nagar, Chandran penned his disappointment. In a note, he wrote he had reached the venue before 8.45 am but had mistakenly entered the wrong centre.

The venue of the examination — Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Paharganj — was not more than five kilometres from his Old Rajinder Nagar house.

“After I entered, I found that the centre itself was wrong… the one which I had reached… although I reached the other centre at 9.24 am I was denied entry,” his handwritten note reads.

“It is very sad on the part of the supervising officials that such a thing happened. I understand that rules are rules, but bending them for a good purpose should be legitimate...” he wrote.

An admit card, which the police recovered from his room, explains the rules of the examination centre. “Please note that entry into the examination venue shall be closed 10 minutes before the scheduled commencement of examination that is 9.20 am for the forenoon session and 2.20 pm for the afternoon session. No candidate shall be allowed entry into the examination venue after closure of the entry.”

Chandran, in his note, clarified that nothing has compelled him to take this step and that he was fully aware of the cause and the consequences of his action. He left another note for the police, informing them that a friend’s notebook was in his room and that she was just a friend. “We are just friends. It is just that her books remained with me that I want to return for her future exams. She shall not be questioned regarding my suicide.”

For his family, Chandran had a message, “...There was anyway no point in living this life further. I anyway would just have been a living dead body. What has happened has happened. It would have happened any time anywhere. I know it will be very difficult from now on but not impossible. Just think I never existed.”

The last line, written in capital letters, read, “The more you try to forget me, more happy my soul will be.”