2 lives in 12 hours

 

It can only be cruel coincidence that two lives, one making local headlines and the other national, would be lost. Suicides, both of them. Third of June, midday, a young boy, pursuing medicine, undergoing first year examinations, hung himself in his hostel room. Few hundred kilometres away in Mumbai, an actress, in the midnight, does the same in her house.

Do not we feel sad about suicides? Do we, perceivably ‘strong’ people, tag it as an act of a ‘weak’ person who could not handle the pressure? We ask reasons for suicides, and more often than not, emerges that word which is synonymous with suicide – failure.

Life is beautiful. It is a privilege to live. To share cup of tea with parents, laugh with friends, cry on shoulders, see movies, help others, create something, have a home, love, hate, express, feel, get hurt, rise, quarrel, gossip, enjoy, curse...and countless, truly endless range of emotions, of all hues, is possible only when exists life.

But we are deeply conditioned for something else too, something that like a creeper runs with life, it co exists, it flowers too, it makes life look beautiful to everyone including oneself – and that is to succeed. Success is the cornerstone of our lives. One sperm succeeded in bringing us to lives is true, but do we have to attach that attribute to everything else? School, education, relations, work, society, and everything and everywhere else, there is only one road to take – the road to success.

And it is under this aura of success that failure appears as the ultimate curse. It is a poison. Lack of success is frowned upon, cursed at, humiliated, and above all not accepted. It is this lack of acceptance, be it by parents, by friends, by partner, by the grading system, by the society, that exerts immense pressure on an individual.

A rope of coir, plastic, steel will have different snapping points. Does not every chemical have different boiling points? Do not we all have different emotions, different ways of reacting towards every situation? We do. But despite being different in all aspects, we expect the same formula of success, same medicine to fit all, suit all and also be effective for all. Herein we miss the point.

Do we fathom the amount of frustration, the furlongs list of failure that would have taken to take that decision, that decision to finish it all, that decision to leave the comforts of a mothers hug or a fathers pat, that decision to sit with friends, read a book, stroll on the beach, or how ironic but that decision to stop thinking!

It is thoughts which needs addressing, which needs to be pondered upon. Thoughts of parents to begin with; for what are the right amount of pressure for the child or the lack of it. Thoughts for education systems, the harbinger of grades and thus comparisons, to evaluate if they are not providing vents in this rat race. Thoughts for society; for what is definition of success and how do we deal in the face of lack of it.

Suicides are waste of valuable lives. Those lives could have been existent, laughing or crying, for a life cannot be only filled with laughter or mired with mirth. The boy would have become a doctor, helping others live; the actress could have entertained others, helping others live. But instead the lives were cut short, by themselves, both in a span of 12 hours. Cruel.