A Class 10 student from Lucknow, Prajakta Swarup had gone under a major brain surgery due to a clot that led to damage of nerves, last week. The reason behind this was intake of excessive sleeping pills along with steaming cups of coffee.
Prajakta had been staying up all night preparing for her board examinations.
Prajakta collapsed one evening and was hospitalised. Her parents later found a bottleful of pills in her drawer and when they handed them over to the doctor, they were shocked to know that their daughter had been on anti-sleep pills.
“Shocking though it may sound, an increasing number of students, today, are taking these anti-sleep pills that help them stay awake during examinations. This is a very dangerous trend and the drugs are being smuggled in from countries like Bangkok. These drugs can have dangerous side effects, especially if taken with an overdose of caffeine — too many cups of coffee — as it happened in Prajakta’s case,” said a leading neurosurgeon Dr Sharad Srivastava.
“These are variants of Modafinil that is said to improve memory, and enhance one’s mood, alertness and cognitive powers. The drug has a smoother feel than amphetamines and enables the user to stay awake and alert for 40 hours or more at a stretch. Once the drug wears off, you just have to catch up on some sleep,” said another medical practitioner who did not wish to be named.
A chemist, Surinder Kohli, accepted the fact that the sale of anti-sleep pills, memory enhancers has increased up for the past one month.
“Customers are ready to pay any amount for these drugs. They also buy energy drinks to ward off fatigue,” he said but parried questions about the legality of over-the-counter selling of these drugs.
A senior police official made a shocking revelation when he said, “It is terrorists who are now using these anti-sleep drugs to stay awake during combat hours. It was first found during the 26/11 attacks that the terrorists carried drugs in the backpacks. Most of us do not know details about these drugs and there have been no complaints so far from the common people, so no action has been taken.”
Dr R K Saxena, a well-known psychiatrist, said that the rising issue of students taking anti-sleep pills during examinations was mainly a result of growing stress and peer pressure.
“There is immense pressure on children to score high percentages so that they can get admissions in good colleges. The children are berated if they get even half a per cent less than their friends. The pressure to score 98 and 99 per cent in board examinations is slowly killing them. Parents should accept the fact that such high percentages can be unrealistic and not every child can score these marks,” he said.
Dr Saxena highlighted the raising concern in today’s world, parental guidance is almost non-existent, especially in cases where both the parents were working.
“Parents do not have the time to watch changes in their child’s behaviour and counsel her or understand the pressure that he feels. The child is left on his own and starts taking these drugs on the recommendation of friends,” he said.
Prajakta’s parents now understood that they did not felt the kind of pressure their daughter was living with. “She kept telling us that she wanted high scores in examinations so that she could get admission in a good college in Delhi because that is where her friends would be going,” her father said.
Meanwhile, teachers blame the parents as well as students for not studying a consistent study pattern.
Pushpa D’Souza, a retired teacher from an English medium girls’ school, said, “Students do not study all year through. They bunk classes and the parents remain blissfully unaware. If the parents monitor their children’s study pattern throughout the year, the examination tension will ease to a considerable extent.
Suniti, who is Prajakta’s classmate, said rather indignantly, “It is the parents who keep reprimanding us and pushing us to get top scores. They compare us with their friends’ children and tell us that we are good for nothing. What else can we do in such a situation?”