Asansol: Thoibi's photograph defied her absence. From within the wet glass frame, it seemed she was looking straight into the eyes of her grandmother Sabita Mukherjee whose tears never stopped flowing down the cheeks. Clutching the photograph close to her chest at times, and cleaning it with her saree at others, Sabita was sobbing uncontrollably. “My Thoibi sang so well… scored well in all exams, but this one exam was the cruelest and she lost it,” she murmured, and suddenly stopped talking mid-way. Words seemed hollow, and the mild sound of weeping from the heart pierced the silence.
A day that could have brought about cheers of celebration in the house had fallen silent. The family was in mourning and so was the house where Thoibi Mukherjee, the brilliant 16-year-old from Asansol, who had just topped her school and district in the Madhyamik (Secondary) Examination 2025, grew up. But she was no more to even hear the news as she breathed her last due to liver failure in a Vellore hospital on April 16.
She scored 674 out of 700, an extraordinary 96.29% making her not only the topper at Umarani Gorai Mahila Kalyan School, but among girls in the entire Paschim Bardhaman district. Thoibi today is resting in peace as people who know her are mourning her passing.
The Mukherjee family home in the Ismail area of Asansol saw visitors including her teachers, friends, and neighbours rushing in on the result day only to see Thoibi in the photographs, pay tributes and light a candle in her memory.
Thoibi had never lost a chance to secure the first position in the school. Besides academics, she excelled in the arts and music. A happy-go-lucky child, she fell ill just as her exams were approaching. Something that was diagnosed as jaundice turned into a nightmare for the family later on. Braving all her ailments and pain, Thoibi insisted to appear the exams and she did.
“She was certainly in pain while writing the exams,” one of her teachers remembered. “She would keep bending her head, almost collapsing. But then she would gather herself and lift the pen to write. She was determined to attempt all the questions,” added she.
Soon after her exams she was diagnosed with liver failure and rushed to Hyderabad, where doctors advised an urgent liver transplant, that would cost a whopping Rs 1 crore. Her father, Vivekananda Mukherjee, a homeopathic doctor, and her mother, Pew Mukherjee, a homemaker, were broken. But the city of Asansol came together when they knew her condition. Within no time, donations poured in and Rs 45 lakh was collected in days.
As her condition was worsening, she had to be airlifted to Vellore but she breathed her last.
The marksheet brought tears into the eyes of her teachers all the more. In Bengali she scored 99, though she had promised her granddad that she would get 96, in English 92, Mathematics 98, Physical Science 97, Life Science 98, History 95 and Geography 95.
Her grandfather, Basanti Das Mukherjee, broke down reminiscing Thoibi's assurance to him that she would score nothing less than 96 in Bengali. "She has got 99 but I cannot see her here …” he said sobbing.
Unable to bear the trauma, Thoibi's parents left Asansol on the result day. “My son told me that there is no point knowing her results and staying back when people will definitely come to meet them. He has lost his child and it is so difficult to bear it,” he says.
School principal Papri Banerjee was all praises for Thoibi. "Had she not fallen sick, she would have been the state topper from our school. But despite her sickness she is the school topper and we are all so proud,” she said emotionally.
As Thoibi's framed photo is kept on a table with garlands and candles, her result sheet with extraordinary numbers lose meaning in the void she left.
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