Angel

Have you ever seen an angel? Well I have once. It was a long time before, when I was in college. It was raining heavily that day, when I saw her. It was a mid day about noon, I recall and I was walking,  all wet. I was suspended for a day from the college. I didn't do anything, I said the same. They said that's why I was suspended. The scene was, me and two of my friends, Raman and Richa, they were seeing each other; no they are not genetically related though their name has same initials, it's not an incest situation from any angle. We were returning towards the classroom from the front gate. We were supposed to bunk the class and go for a movie and we jumped over the college wall and all of sudden it started pouring.  Not feeble type but deluge type. So we were trying to jump back when our English teacher Mr. Sah caught us. He asked us to go straight to the principal's office so we were going towards the classroom when the scene took place. We had to pass the front gate to get to our classroom avoiding principal's office. We were going that way when suddenly I saw Ramlal. Ramlal guards the front gate. He owed me 100 bucks of a bet I won few days ago. We all went to the gate and I asked Ramlal for the money. He denied of the bet and threaded me as a sod. I felt sorry for him. It's strange but true,  I never feel angry. I do feel angry sometimes but that's when I see someone betraying another; but in my own case I never feel angry. I feel sad though.  Even when Smitha left me, I wasn't angry, not even sad. She was such a pain in ass anyway. She was such a question mark. Question and questions on anything and everything relevant or irrelevant. Enough was enough,  I was so much irritated,  I called her a question mark and asked her to give me some peace, I said please. She started to cry and I left. I can't see someone crying. It's another thing I cannot stand seeing after seeing someone throwing up. So when we were returning from front gate Big Som came out of nowhere and started hitting Raman. We called him Big Som because of his heavily built body. He always walked with other two guys of his size. No one dared to strive with Big Som. Big Som used to date Richa, I don't know why she broke up. He was a nice guy by heart, always protective to Richa. He hit all guys who came closer to Richa. Then Richa started crying. I already told you I can't stand someone crying. I was thinking of saving Raman, he is my childhood friend and thats my responsibility but then I left the thought and walked away from them. Raman struggled for a while and then fainted, poor thing. The wardens came running. Big Som and his boys tried to flee but were caught mid-way. Next scene was at principal's office and we all were suspended.  I still don't know why I was suspended.  Even Richa showed a cold shoulder to me when I went to talk with her. It was pouring heavily and I wanted lift, she shouted a big no to my face. I couldn't understand why they were behaving so strange suddenly,  I hadn't done anything. Then in that downpour I started to the streets slowly.  Had I carried my headphones,  it would have been some help, but I had left home that day. Its the only day I ever left my headphones at home. The street was deserted except an old women struggling with her umbrella,  half wet on the other side of the road. I thought of helping her, I like helping people in need. I went to her and offered to hold her umbrella for her. She gave this strange look to me, as if I was a monster direct from lochness, and walked so fast as if I asked her both kidneys. People are such dork nowadays.  I cannot figure out what they want. Once, it was the time when I was dating Sumana, it was only a week we had started seeing each other and we had decided to take things slow. It was actually her idea. So I took it slow. Later she used to complain that I was ignoring her, that I didn't call or text or met her frequently.  In my wit I think these activities are not done so frequently when you are taking things slowly. I still can't understand what she wanted to take slow. The old women was much ahead of me and I could see her shade far away. I was no more interested in helping her, so I just ignored her and was trying to think something else when suddenly a scooty stopped in front of me. I was amazed and still and a little scared. I don't have much guts for myself. When this sort of situation come over I feel scared and all my wrong deeds come over my eyes. Like I guessed in my mind that the person on the scooty is the one whom I kicked and ran at the urinal or the guy I portend on the phone to win a bet. She was a lady, the one on the scooty, asked if I wanted a lift. I felt weightless suddenly,  appreciated her generosity and sat on the scooty. I felt so good that I found someone with an ample heart, someone who is not phony. I realised she was my angel. Angel on a scooty not broom. Oh! I think broom are for witches. I always get confused between angel and witch. First I used to distinguish them and evil and not evil, then I read about good witches. What are good witches, if they are good shouldn't they be called angels. Nevermind, people are people and they say whatever they like. They have completely ignored the term logic and they call themselves witty. They have guts. Many things were coming, going and circling my mind as I was sitting at the back of that scooty. Suddenly it came to halt.  There was a crossroad ahead. She asked me which way was mine. I had to go left and her's was right. So I climbed down the scooty and she left. I didn't even got a chance to say her that she was my angel. I got just a glimpse of her lips out of her face, she had a helmet on. I still feel sad about the fact that I wasn't able to say her that she was my angel. I look for her everytime I walk on the road, I even sometime walk alone on the rain expecting her to rescue me. I never found her again. Even today if I saw those lips, I can recognise her and say her that she is my angel. I wonder if she'll recognise me.

(Influenced by J.D Shalinger's "Catcher in the rye".)

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suicide

Killing yourself. The end of everlasting anxiety for one or an act of cowardice. There may be other definitions depending on the nature, state of mind or stage of life people are in. No one knows what happens after you commit, as you won’t be around to witness the consequences.  Maybe freedom from this abomination awaits on the other side. In the movie "Bucket list" Morgan Freeman states five stages to suicide; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Can't say about first four but the last one Acceptance seems very significant; maybe we accept that there are no rainbows but only gloomy dark forest ahead and it is the time for ending the misery once and for all with the end ourselves.

2013 was the year. Two people; people I knew, who I admired, died. Sadly, one of them chose the way of suicide. Two cases so distinct, ironical and cruel. Samikshya, who wanted to live long, determined to change the society and perception of people, who chose veterinary studies given her love towards animals. She was there to make a difference. She had made plans and was on her way to make this world a better place that humans and animals could share. She died of a cruel disease at 21, before should even embark on her journey. And Jiten, a healthy young man, hanged himself; for something maybe that was worth more than his life for him. He concluded it was better dying than living. I don’t mean to show him down, shadowing in his cowardliness to dying than facing life because maybe he had his own reasons. I cannot and will not blame him for his mother's tears or father's shattered heart. A friend of mine who met Jiten that very morning posted that it would be better to hear someone had killed you than to hear you killed yourself. He was shocked by that incident.  We all were. Many other fellows of my stage of life killed themselves that year or say that month there at that same city. These all events along with so much others created a new me in me; took away the immaturity and made me more sensitive. A year never took so much from me before and never gave me so much as well.

As these incidents were happening around me, I started comparing my life with theirs. There was not much of differences. I felt my heavy heart, looked around to find all those alien faces. My friends, family, colleagues all seemed aliens as no one understood me and what I was going through. Neither I could see the pain and sufferings, people around me were going through. Everyone hid their sufferings behind a smiling face. And even if someone tried to come out and share, I wasn’t letting them to have the safe space, letting them say what they were going through; neither anyone else was letting me share their safe space.  Standing at the roof with the feeling of jumping off or staring at the ceiling searching for a way out; left me without the answers I searched for. Who am I? What is my purpose? What am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? What is the right thing? So many questions and having none answered created a huge void in me. Same must have happened to Jiten or others who chose his way.

There must be some reasonings as well. I have seen and met people who survived or were saved. Everyone had their own reasons. For some it was money or failure to achieve what they strived for in life and sacrificed everything they could for it, for others it was family & problems; love. My young mind thinks that money and failure maybe are reasonable; materialistic desires lead to anxiety and depression that slowly engulfs you into darkness. Not everyone can earn a lot of money or be very successful. Greed and jealousy kill a person from the inside first and explodes to the outside later. Only love and mental peace can save the person. Love, is a vague phenomenon. I am not talking about the one people generally imply it as. People dying for love. Killing themselves for a girl or a boy. I never find that reasonable. A person killing themselves for the sake of love didn’t get to know what love really is. That person died in guilt and remorse, lack of love. People idolize and quote stories and dramas such as Romeo and Juliet, great people, immortalized as they died for love. But these are the stories that end with the characters. No one tells you about the sufferings that Romeo’s father had to go through or the pain Romeo’s mother felt as their grown-up son died for a girl he met just few days ago. How his friends or brothers felt when they carried their buddy’s corpse for cremation. Its different in real life.

The reason Jiten died as I get to know was due to failure in studies. Only he knows the real reason and we have no way to find it out.
I don't think anyone plans for suicide.  I feel it’s a sheer flow of mind or a ripple in subconscious that causes a life ending disaster, like heart attack maybe. Jiten was drunk that day. He was alone and was set to thinking a lot. Maybe he reached to the proximity of his ultimate way ahead and found only darkness. More darkness than he overcame in his past days. Darkness with hurdles and thorns. He compared his foreseen future with death, there is darkness but don't know if there are thorns. Holy Gita says that our life is a cycle. Never fear to die if death is required but don't use it as an escape. You are again coming here and this time you will face for your earlier life's sin as well. And using death as an escape is an unforgivable sin. Jiten's dad cried in front of me; his uncle said that a ray of hope for his family and society is lost.
Everyone faces ups and down in life.

I have faced my share of problems and difficulties that created an earthquake in my bones. I am proud till date that I am a fighter who never took easy way out. But there are people especially young people who make mistakes in life, come across failure and cannot find a way out. My suggestion is finding a support. It can be a person, a book, religion, hobby or anything that will take you in a different journey. Give life a second chance. For your family, your siblings, your friends. People who accepted you as you are and who stood with you not only when you won but were these when you lost. Give them a chance. Give yourself a chance.

(Names changed)
(Dedicated to all those young people who died in 2013 due to different reasons.)

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