The serious side of Kogul

From a Tehelka article about Dalit student suicides:

Kamal is a 22-year old student from a village near Salem, Tamil Nadu. His father works in a local shop and his mother is a housewife. Students in Kamal’s elite college in Chennai giggled politely when he pronounced parents as pay-rents. “Sometimes, I think so many times before saying something in English or don’t answer a question in class because I am scared to speak,” says Kamal. Over the semester, his self-confidence plunged and so did his academic performance. “In Salem, I had many friends. Here I can’t recognise myself and don’t know about English music and films, so there is not much I can talk about,” says Kamal. He now spends his evenings alone in his hostel room.