JOIN USAt a time when anyone else in his position would be left anxious, Reijul Sachdev believed that there lives a superman in every freak. This helped the 22-year-old schizophrenic pen down his thoughts into verses that could be read over and again.
Sachdev’s anthology of poems, ‘Emerald Blades’ was read out at the British Library in the city on Sunday, amid cheers and appreciation from his former classmates and teachers. The poet’s former classmates and teachers read out the poems. He passed out of class 12 from NPS, Koramangala in 2012.
It was in the fourth year of his studies at Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Bengaluru that Sachdev was diagnosed to have schizophrenia. He wrote most of the poems after he dropped out of the college, Sachdev told Deccan Herald. “I started writing it two years ago. I have written on a range of topics from politics to rationality and liberty,” he added.
Even as doctors initially told Sachdev that it was only borderline schizophrenia, eventually, his condition worsened, he explained. “Recently, I was diagnosed to have paranoid schizophrenia. I tend to see a lot of things which are not really there. Most of my poems stem from my experience as a schizophrenic. Some poems might be a little dark but they all have a silver lining. There is always a glimmer of hope at the end,” he added.
While he pens down some poems just as thoughts occur, some times he takes time to streamline the thoughts before putting them into words. “Wilder things, for example, were written immediately. However, with issues like ‘suicide’, I think about them for several days and then write them,” said Sachdev.
Emerald Blades is a collection of 47 poems and is available online. Sachdev said the book would be officially launched soon.