They sang goodbye....and we never knew why....

"Hello"
"Ahh.. hi... sup?"
" I need to meet you..need to talk.."
" Hey listen I cant meet you now. I am really busy... in the midst of exams.. History paper day after..."
"Ok... give me an hour.. let me meet you after that"
"Alrite!"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....


A horrifying scream.. the color spilling all over my canvas.. the lump in my heart... the pinching of my eyes...I looked up and I knew it was done...


it was all over.... it was all over.....


they said he hung himself from the ceiling.....using a pretty paisley printed chaddar...
his tongue tightly clasped between his teeth struggling to battle the suffering of the choke...
his perfectly sculpted, tanned shirtless body...cold, stiff, blue and yellow.....


Disbelief, denial.... I ran up to him ready to slap him and wake him up.. put an end to this nasty joke...
Slap I did... and i did more... i tugged, i pulled, i pushed, i pinched, i cajoled and coaxed, i scream t and i swore...
He did not wake up and it wasn't a joke...



I was 13 then....


12 years later...
Another phone call...


"Hello"
"Can't find Ria anywhere... she just went out to play video games at the neighbors...
its been two hours now....she doesn't have her cell"
"Did you try calling all her friends..?"
"Yes.. all who we know......they don't know anything"
"Hmm... she had called a friend from my cell last night... let me try checking"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....

"Hi, are you Ria's friend speaking?"
"Ummm...errrr.....ummm...yeeeeaaaahhhh...can to come to the hospital immediately..."
"HOSPITAL.......??? ok yeah yeah I am coming"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....


There she was.... my little shona bon......lying silently on the stretcher...
The distant but familiar lump in my heart... the pinching of my eyes...I looked down and I knew it was done...

it was all over.... it was all over.....

they said she jumped in front of the metro rail.... she jumped just when the train was about to stop...
her petite body... cold, stiff, blue and yellow.....
This time there was no denial.... only disbelief!



She was ready early in the morning... 6 am!
Dressed in her favorite ping ghagra choli....she looked like a princess as the first rays of the sun broke behind the clouds and kissed her unbruised face...

However this time she wasn't the loud chirpy vivacious 16 yr self she used to be..

she was unfamiliarly calm and peaceful........


She lay on the pile of sandalwood....on the ghats of the ganges....the water lapped silently by her feet.. singing her the last lullaby......
the crimon sky perfectly complimenting her attire...


She looked composed......

Its been 12 years and I have still failed in all my efforts to understand, comprehend, accept identify or prevent self death ( i hate the word suicide.. hate the way it is spelt and hate the way it sounds on the ears! )

The verge of reaching a point where the pain of taking one's life feels easier than dealing with life's pains is still a mystery...and perhaps will always be...
and in a way I am glad to be so very very distant from unravelling or understanding this mystery...
but alas the loss is something so personal that I cant help ponder.....

Its strange how wierdly complicated and yet simple the human mind and heart can be....
It sometimes finds a simple solution to answers life's complications!!

It is said that self death is never an impromptu act... its never an out of the blue activity.
There is always a lot of thought, pre thought, a lot of planning and attempts and try-outs...
And yet in most cases individuals appear so normal that even the closest people surrounding them are completely oblivious to their state of mind. The act always feels like an abberation of character, so abnormal....so unnatural....so shocking.. so uncomprehensible...so unacceptable...They walk among us, talk among us, laugh and cry and play and dance among us...being so much like us.....and one day they are gone....just like that...

I cannot write much about the mental or emotional state of a person going through this phase except for the obvious that they are depressed, in pain and confused with a lot of anxiety. Supposedly sane people like you and me use a lot of adjectives, some say they are weak, losers, cowards, selfish, ungrateful or plain fucked up morons..... I am not sure I agree with any of this...

They are neither weak, nor crazy, nor do they lack willpower. It is perhaps very easy for us to comment " Hey, that is not reason enough for being suicidal! ". However as individuals we deal with a lot of different pain . Individuals differ greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. Different individuals have different sensitivity towards pain and even to different kinds of pain. And each individual is blessed with his or her own resources to cope up with pain.
Whether or not a pain is bearable differs from person to person based on the kind of coping up resources that a person has. And it is when the pain exceeds the person's coping up resources, that death changes from being and idea to an act.


Self death cannot be categorised as right or wrong. It is not a flaw or a defect of character. Its morally neutral.


Being on the receiving side, what I can however write about is what such an act leaves behind....


the difficulty of accepting it...
the difficulty of accepting it...................because of the lack of a closure....
a lack of closure......................because of the innumerable unanswered questions left for one to ponder....
the unanswered questions........... always leave behind a sense of guilt for the loved ones to deal with..........
the guilt.............slowly adding shades of frustration, anger and hatred to where once was pure love.

They leave you incomplete............you learn to move on...........
you smile and dance and love and live again............. till you feel the familiar incompleteness once again and ask........WHY?.......................................... WHY?



They sang goodbye..........and we never knew why.....