IIIT-Bangalore student lands gold after burying purple phantoms

BENGALURU: When Reijul Sachdev bagged a gold medal for scoring the highest CGPA (3.98 out of 4) in iMTech at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) on Sunday, none would have imagined that he only recently overcome a three-year-old battle with schizophrenia.

Though schizophrenia is likely to stay with him for his life, the 26-year-old has set an example by tiding over the worst phase and even landed an offer from Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue PhD in financial data.
“I suffered from hallucinations and persecution mania and was afraid of people wearing purple. I used to see people when there weren’t around me,” said Reijul, who graduated from IIT-B.
Reijul first realised that something was wrong with him in 2015 when he was pursuing his internship at MIT. Though initially doctors diagnosed his condition as borderline personality disorder, Reijul’s symptoms grew by the day. “I used to just run wild and even get lost. That’s when I was kept under sedation for most of the time. My doctors from Nimhans helped me during that phase,” recalls Reijul.
Forced to take a break from his undergraduate studies, Reijul returned to Bengaluru in 2017. “My professors, friends and family helped me a lot. In fact, my professors would visit me at home and I’d try to keep up with studies whenever I could,” he added.
Poetry proved therapeutic
Reijul soon took to poetry and has even published a book of poems titled Emerald Blades. He says poetry proved therapeutic for him. Still under medication, Reijul now wants to do something for people suffering from schizophrenia. “I plan to utilise technology to help people suffering from schizophrenia. I will be working on a technology called ‘common sense reasoning’, an automated programme to diagnose patients’ mental problem,” said Reiju, explaining that it’d be quicker, accurate and save doctors’ time, which is most often wasted in categorising a patient’s illness.
Other achievers
Indu Ilanchezian, who graduated in iMTech from IIIT-B, will join Max Planck Institute for Intelligent System in Germany to research applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Indian healthcare. “For instance, when a machine predicts that a patient suffers from any disease, the path it takes to get to the result is unknown. This research will find it and make it reliable,” she explained.
Veerapuraju Dhanya Akhila, another gold medallist, will join Microsoft as a software developer. But her long term plan is to empower women in rural India by helping them set up online business free from middlemen. “Rural women produce various products with their immense talent. I want to give them a platform,” said Dhanya.