WARANGAL: Devaraya Ramesh (26) wanted to highlight the determination of the people over separate Telangana by ending his life. However, destiny had something else in store for him.A resident of Katkoor in Bachannapet mandal of Warangal district, Ramesh jumped off the 50-metrehigh village water tank on May 7, 2010, even as the 300-odd villagers urged him to climb down. The youth survived the fall and is now bedridden, having broken his hands and legs.“It wasn’t a decision taken on the spur of the moment. All I wanted was to show to the prime minister and the AICC chief Sonia Gandhi the intensity of the T-movement. I was not worried over the future of my parents at the moment.All that I could remember was I was shouting ‘Jai Telangana’ when I jumped off the water tank,” Ramesh recollects with tears in his eyes.The youth got 32 rods implanted in his body and the surgeries cost his parents Yellaiah and Lakshmi more than Rs 2 lakh, out of which Rs 50,000 was met by TRS leader T Harish Rao.Now, Ramesh makes a visit to hospital every week and was told by doctors that he can never lead a normal life. His parents can’t raise any more the big amounts needed for his treatment. Both do petty jobs and could hardly make the ends meet.“I thought I will be a martyr, but it is agonising to be alive like this and see my parents suffer. We could find no helping hand; even those who lauded my inspiring speeches on Telangana preferred not to pay any attention to my condition,” he laments.Live to AchieveVangeti Satyanarayana (38), from Neerukulla of Atmakur mandal, too survived a suicide bid after battling for life for about a week. An employee at drinking water treatment plant , Satyanarayana set himself ablaze using kerosene during a protest near the village bus station on November 29, 2009.“I felt the flames charring my skin and smelt the stench of my burning body,” he recalls.However, two villagers, Ramaswamy and Chalapathi Rao, put out the flames with a blanket. Satyanarayana was then rushed to the nearby MGM Hospital.He later served a jail sentence for 15 days for the suicide attempt.“My daughter was one-and-a- half years old when I tried to immolate myself.My wife Aruna and parents were of course dependent on me and my death would have only shattered their lives. The very thought of it send chills down my spine now,” Satyanarayana says.He says he realised that achieving a goal requires one to stay alive and fight for the cause rather than sacrifice one’s life. Now, he works for the Telangana cause in his own way.
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