Dead End

“I would have been dead long ago if death didn’t scare me so much”. She waited for a response but there was none. He remained silent waiting for her to continue. She hesitated before continuing again

“I belonged to a family of six – parents, three daughters and a son. – All trying to live their dreams at once. There was no death. No starvation. No torture. No exam failures. Not even failed marriages or affairs. I did not wish death but living was becoming difficult in spite of my fervent wishes of living a long fulfilling life…The very reason that I had no reason to kill myself resulted in me and my existence go unnoticed – at home, at work, every where – It was as if I didn’t exist… at all, while all the while all I wanted was some body to reach out and find me…”

“Did you try to reach out to someone?” He interrupted me for the first time.

She sighed and shook her head. “There was no one to reach out to. Mom and Dad were too busy with their struggles to make a life for their children. Their attempts sincere but their show of satisfaction and happiness? Hollow! Maybe Ma sensed but as I behaved normally so she did not pursue her intuition.  My sister- the one older to me was wrapped in her own world. At least her world was moving smoothly which made matters worse for me.  There was no sibling rivalry but there was none of the bonhomie and camaraderie either… She was closer to my younger sister. In their some what happier world I was an intruder. I watched on wistfully from the periphery. My brother was the youngest – too young, too rebellious. .  And I was lonely… and I remained lonely…One doesn’t try to kill oneself one fine day, out of the blue… well at least that was not the case with me. It was as if life itself was showing me the exit gate. When life gives up on you, you don’t really stand a chance. Life had come to a standstill. No I don’t mean to say monotonous though it was in a way, but what I wanted to say was that there was nothing life could offer me… anymore.”

“You were just 21. How could you say that??” He asked, the contempt unmasked

“This … this made it worse. You know!” She retorted empathetically.

“Which?” he asked

“Exactly this contempt. Condescending attitude. .As if… as if…”she stuttered.

“As if?”

“As if there is a kind of qualifying criteria for suicide, for wanting to die…And if you had no major reason like rape, terminal disease, mass murders at home, debts, you don’t have the right to even think of it. This is not about facts or figure. It is about perception. I perceived life as finished and I could not help it if I perceived it that way. You don’t see it the way I do, doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a problem…I… I wanted to live… but just saying Oh you don’t have a problem. You think too much. Just chill didn’t help at all. Instead it made matters worse. You just start loosing the person to her his dark world”.

“So you had confided to someone?” It was more a statement then a question.

“Yes… Yes I did, it’s a kind of SOS   everybody does… but I just didn’t present it that way. I don’t know if any one does… but when I did I wanted my listener to realize that I needed help. .that I was in grave danger from …myself”.

“So if you had asked for help then what went wrong?”

“No it wasn’t an explicit request… rather a rant maybe… maybe just a casual remark said lightly over a cup of coffee that…”

“That?” he asked a little too sharply.

“That life wasn’t same anymore… and I didn’t feel …well..”

Just that? He asked.

“Yes…”

“And you wanted the other person to realise that you needed help. Was that person a psychic or a mind reader?” He asked sarcastically.

“I had mentioned quite a number of times but she didn’t take it seriously maybe… To Dimpy – a cousin to whom I was close to… it was the same advice – Don’t be depressed. Your time will come. Have faith – the standard statements that are spoken to a depressed person.”

“So what exactly did you tell her?” he asked warming up to the discussion.

“Well that was the problem… I didn’t have anything substantial to say.  Everything about me was mediocre. My schooling. My upbringing, my lifestyle. My life ..even my gloomy desolate job as a reception in a mediocre nursing home… All my life I had just been mediocre and I had enough of it.  There was no chance of advancement… I just realized that It was going to be just the same the next hundred years if I lived that long. All around me I saw gloomy sad defeated faces. The faces that were happy did not belong to my world or rather I did not belong there. As I said my life had come to a stand still. Even my reason to stop living was mediocre.  A mediocre person with non mediocre aspirations and I had begun hating this existence. When you hate the way you live your life, you die everyday just to survive another day.”

“Ah so it is about expectations. It always is…but you were better off than most…” he trailed away

“I know I know the shoe story…” she said impatiently

‘Shoe story?” Amusement played on that query

“Yes the story of a boy wishing for a pair of shoes because he had none until he sees a boy without a leg…But tell me did his need for shoe vanish? He had none. He still needed a pair. My full sympathies with the boy without the leg but a wish are a wish… It lingers on at a deep dark corner of the mind… making you more miserable because now that you have seen the boy without a leg you can’t even rant…”

“Instead of ranting well he could try to get a pair of shoes? Did you try?”

“That’s a question I keep on asking myself a lot. Did I try? I wanted to… but I didn’t know how to…”

“You could have made friends. Gone out. Have fun. Fell in love…”

“Ah Instant noodles… Instant solutions for suicidal persons. . . Friends? How? Is there some kind of exchange or market which provided friends. Gone out. My family set up wasn’t such that I could afford to go out having fun. Love? More than love I needed a friend.”

“But I thought you had mentioned yourself as a receptionist…”

“Yes I was earning a meager sum which went into the family kitty. That was no great shakes.. I tried to shift job but my qualifications could only go as far as this… And that was another thing I used to think… that maybe if I had better opportunities I would have done better… life would have been more exciting.”

“Had been  …would have been…. If only instead of retrospection you had fought for survival… fought to make your life the way you wanted it to be… Found yourself a reason to live.”

“That was exactly the point. There wasn’t any war to fight for or against. There was no high no low in my life. It was one long monotonous path. My life could have gone on only one direction.   All around me, I saw people hollow, empty with no desire to neither feel nor make anyone feel… I knew I was going to become one such. Maybe my dull life would have changed say after 40 years but by then I too would have become empty and dead. .Either way I was going to be dead… Reason to live? Well what had I been doing all my 21 years if not that? Honestly, I did not wish to die, but I was left with no choice but to choose otherwise. It was as if the walls were closing on me, the doors were being shut. Many a time  I could feel the cold touch of death and I used to weep in desperation, willing someone to save me for I knew I was becoming weak in front of my lack of desire to live. And that day, the trigger point just occurred…”

She paused again for some response. He was quiet with concentration for a moment then asked softly. “So what did you want exactly?”

“Well. I knew what I didn’t want but I was clueless about what I wanted… If only someone had…”

“Everybody has their own struggles. Everyone here is tying to survive yet another day. Attending to vagaries of your life may not have been that important for them when they themselves had their battles to deal with. Still people try to cope. Weak ones find their strength by helping out people weaker than them… maybe you should have too.” He said softly

“I tried. But I couldn’t.”

“Nothing is impossible. Everything is possible”

“I know. Failure is possible too…I failed’ she held on adamantly

“That is a twisted piece of logic… whatever… So what happened that day? Trigger point?”

“Talks were going on at home during that period for both my and my sister Leenu’s marriage. There were two proposals that awaited our confirmation.  I was not much excited about it but yes! It did carry a ray of hope. I reached home from my work that day to find a discussion going on in the living room. Leenu’s marriage was finalized and was scheduled three months later. And, mine… Well, the groom had asked for a hefty dowry so obviously it was called off, there was a slight stab in my heart but it was what Ma said next did it for me. –‘If she would have been as pretty as Leenu or an with equally god job as hers, maybe they wouldn’t have asked for so much… maybe if she had a cheerful disposition then,’-, It was not meant as an insult nor a reproach, neither  a regret. But it stung… It was always that way. A glance. A look. A remark, suggestion and an innocent question. Anything could just push me to my depths of misery. Sometimes even an absence of a response could do that. At such moments I used to disappear to a storage room upstairs on the roof top… to wallow in self doubt and self pity. .. That day I made quietly upstairs … to my refuge, but my refuge refused to help me that day… Instead I felt more miserable… Well feeling miserable is an understatement.. All my pent up turmoil decided to torture me that day. It was a lost battle. As I sat hunched on the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks, sobbing violently all I wanted was someone who would be just there to hold me back from slipping into that abyss that I had created for myself. I remember waiting for a phone call, a message anything to just hold me back. I wanted Ma to come after me…or any one.  None came. I had texted  Dimpy in a last desperate attempt. A blank message but maybe she was busy.  As I walked towards the lone rickety chair in the room I hoped for some one to come rushing in, even Leenu with her jibes. Anything to make me fight back the impulse. But no one intruded… my loneliness seemed to mock at me then. I walked to my death as if pulled by unseen unknown force.Then, as I felt life ebbing away from me, I realized  too late, how desperately I wanted to live … how desperately I wished for a second chance…and then I was dead…”:

They were both silent for quite sometime.  Finally he broke the silence,

“I was on my way home to marry Leepika. – My childhood sweetheart. Death was swift and instant… Quite a powerful blast it was… Many casualties” He continued after a pause,” I did not even know who killed me or why I was killed. At least you knew… At least you had a choice…I didn’t have any. Victims of mindless violence, we both are. Mindless Senseless violence. You – of your inner violence and me…”

Mani Padma

She is a Doctor by profession , working in Delhi. Loves traveling, mind games and playing with words… And also the chief-co brewer of GingerChai. She is the chief brewer of some of the interesting categories you see in GingerChai.Follow @manishalsam

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Tags: Stories, victims of violence, violence

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