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.)