THE SUICIDE

He has finally decided that he no longer wants to continue. “What’s the sense in living if no one wants you or care about you”, he thought giving strength to his newly made decision. He found himself weak now to fight and struggle with the world. He was losing his pace in this never ending race and he feared that he may run alone after a while in a loop reaching no where. “My problems will end with the end of my life”, he thought.

Rohan Mehra, 2nd year student of BE, wasn’t always the same. He used to be a charming and delightful person once who can bring smile and inculcate enthusiasm in any one. But, as it happens with every one he was also in the mob who failed to chase their dream and were now pursuing something that they think is far below their level. His life seemed to be a perpetual struggle to him now, in which he daily dies 100 times but was forced to continue and live without any reason.

Rohan, once a bright student was now struggling to maintain good grades. The burden of his high expectations from himself was now making him exhaust and tired. He was not satisfied with his college, his personal life and his achievements so far. He was fond of comparing himself to other students and whenever he found that any one of them is ahead of him, the competition begins. His desperations to become perfect and better than other always gradually turns the healthy competition into something ugly. And he ended up with losing his confidence, pride and some good people.

He was now in a panic situation and was getting unstable day by day. His parents never leave any chance of reminding him that what they thought of him and what eventually he had become. He was only a source of bragging to them, a show piece that once enhanced their reputation and now was a rejected piece, a reason of disgust to them, a blot on their parenting skills. The girl he admired and fancied, the only source of relief to him in his bleak life had left him and preferred some other guy whose present qualifications were much above him, this further put him into an interminable inferiority. The atrocious pain of rejection continues to slowly assassin the chunks of happiness and confidence left in him.

Further, his future plans, his only hope to excel were putting lots of pressure in him leading to a never ending turmoil. He was in a stage of a dog chasing his own tail, putting huge efforts but reaching no where. But, the most painful thing was his worst nightmare has turned into an appalling reality. A state of having no identity, since childhood he had lived in a heroic stardom. The presence of limelight has made him insecure and afraid of darkness of a common life. He always preferred that people must know him by his name, but now he was just a part of crowd, running in a common race. He has no name, no identity no existence.

The day of his supposed doom started like any other common days. But he wasn’t worried or afraid now as he knew that his problems and pains too have a short life span now. He got up cheerfully from his bed as he was convinced that after this he would go directly into his death bed into a painless sleep forever without any worry of waking at the correct time and rush to go somewhere. He watched his face clearly in the mirror after a long time realizing that how much he has changed in all these struggling period, but physical beauty didn’t matter to him anymore.

Breakfast was having the regular things like taunts and reproaches from his parents. But today he regressed and rebelled. He didn’t put his head down like always listening to poisonous arrows from his dad. Today he was having the courage to argue with them because he knew he won’t be there to face the repercussions. He shouted on his parents and screamed as he never did and he was prepared for the return screams and drama but surprisingly it wasn’t there. Instead, there were tears, in both his mother’s and father’s eye. Tears, not because of being hurt, but tears of regret. His mother hugged him after a long and apologized for being hard on him when they should have been the most supportive. His unintentional rebellion has opened some doors which were locking affection and care of his parents.

College today was also like teaching lessons of life. He was no longer worried about getting low sessionals, scoring less in exams, having proper image and impression in front of teachers. All he wanted to do was just to emit out all the frustration and so he did. He did all the mischief and argued with every teacher providing entertainment to whole class. He argued, was kicked out of class many times and he didn’t care. He was enjoying his revenge, perhaps for the first time college appeared to be any fun to him. He realized that rock bottom was the best place to throw away all the load and enjoy. As things couldn’t get any worse than enjoying the worst would be the best option perhaps.

He was amused that how the last day of his life was revealing new dimensions of living to him. He also met the girl he admired. But today he was not angry at her, neither he was feeling inferior or rejected by any mean. He had forgiven her today as he thought it was just a part of life. He had forgiven her finally, he had let her go, freed herself as well as himself from something useless and painful. Something, he was remembering just to satisfy his ego.

So the time had come, he was about to write his suicide note. He first began with writing that no one must be blamed for his death. A thought occurred in head suddenly, that if no one is meant to be responsible for his death then why is he dying ? He continued that he was hopeless in his life and can’t continue with the struggle and suddenly he realized all the fun he had in college today. He was not sure whether to mention anything indirectly about his failed love life and suddenly he realized the look on his girl’s face, the silence apology from her and the tranquilizing feeling of forgiving her.

He was taken aback by uncontrolled conflicting emotions flowing throughout his body. Many thoughts running parallel, the situation of his parents when they would see his body hanging, the reaction of other friends who care for him though they never showed it and the most disturbing thought was not giving a final shot to his ultimate aim and thereby the ultimate failure. He always believed that when he would die he would have made his name strong enough to be remembered by others and now he was here, on the verge of meeting his death in an oblivion state, even newspaper would have the headline that a boy hanged not Rohan Mehra hanged himself.

Somehow he stood on the stool and just when he was about to hang he watched the scene of beautiful sunset from his window. The sun getting dimmer and dimmer but still shining red. The sun, soon to be overshadowed and captured by darkness for hours. But it would rise again and fill life in every motionless creature. Little birds returning back to their nest after a long tiring day. But the noises and chirping of them were reflecting an urge to rest for a while and then continue again the next day. Slowly the sun vanished from the horizon but even after it was gone, a bunch of rays were still lighting the horizon. He was tranfixed by watching the scene of a few rays fighting with darkness. After a while, the darkness would capture the entire sky, but in the morning the rays would come back and vanish the darkness.

The serene beauty of the scene and the feeling that he should also rise himself were inculcating new hopes and energy into him gradually. He realized that he was a part of crowd indeed, a faceless entity, but many other of the crowd can only dream of the life he is living. He was in a good college in a country where many were deprived of primary education. He was having a perfect healthy body and a sound mind, which many lacks. Many handicap person fought and succeeded and he inspite of being blessed with a perfect body was quitting. He was having prospects of future and no pressure from family while many have to cease chasing their dreams and take responsibility of family.

The only thinga he lacked was confidence and hope. He hanged the dead and hopeless part of him that day. He understood now, that life could have been worse for him, may be it is not as good as it should be but it isn’t as bad as it could be. May be he would fail again but there is nothing such as a last chance, there are always new opportunities, new hopes, and a better tomorrow. Every day comes like a new chapter of life. The suicide note has become a psalm of life to him and he was born from his ashes again. A new transformed, optimistic, ready to struggle guy who won’t quit who won’t die, as life is much more than just a bunch of failure. He was ready to give life a shot again as it is always better to try and fail than failing to try.

Frenemies.... you can't avoid them

So you think you have more friends than you have enemies or more enemies than you have friends. But guess the correct case would be having far more frenemies than both friends and enemy. Now there isn’t any lord Voldemort in your life so that you can tag someone as pure enemy, friends may be there as shown in movies, but one can never know what they think about you. But frenemies, they are everywhere, quite responsible person, as they have to act like friend in front of you and enemies behind your back.

Now, how to identify a frenemy? The problem is that, you can never identify them unless someone else reveals their true colors. A frenemy, no matter how dumb and stupid he is in real life, is always at peak of wisdom when he is playing his game against you. A frenemy has excellent pretending and faking skill and they never give rise to any situation so that you or anyone else can point their finger on them.

So, how to solve this growing painful problem that can’t be identify as it has no visible symptoms. For this we have to look at the origin of frenemies. Frenemy usually originate from misunderstandings. Misunderstandings originate when either you have not given enough space and confidence to your friends, so that they can talk with you anytime or you didn’t choose right friends who can’t trust you no matter what you do. Frenemies multiply like deadly viruses. They keep on influencing other people and soon you have a large mass against you and you have no idea of it.

So only 2 precautions could be taken if you want to fight or better say avoid frenemies. First, give a close place to only those people in your life whom you can trust and they can trust you in return. Second, avoid misunderstandings and try to clear things as soon as possible as you can. People knowing you better can hurt you best, as they know exactly where to hit so be careful people. Even true friends can’t save you or make you aware of true frenemies.

The Construction Phase.........................

Destruction, though an intimidating word but it rhymes, with and is antonym of the word construction. For several days I was thinking to update my blog with a good post, but lack of constructive and creative thoughts was restricting me. On today’s morning, when I was analyzing and inspecting the construction work going on my house I came with a very awkward yet interesting analogy between the construction of building and our own mind.

Have you ever felt broken inside, with a reason or without any reason?? Mood swings without any reason at regular intervals, getting depressed again and again and having just negative approach for everything. Sitting alone in your friend circle or avoiding contact with them pretending that you are lost somewhere else. With every new day there seemed no new beginning, and sunset seemed more prominent than sunrise. The things which used to give us happiness, sounds illogical and scary and we just wanted to run away from them. We all have definitely gone through a very bizarre period in our life where life lacks something, what we don’t know? But the essence of enjoyment and enthusiasm is lost and we just flail without any control on our mind and mood.

But for some new construction or building of a new monument, destruction is the first part. You can’t create something new on an existing thing. Even for a slight modification something has to be destruct first. The same concept is applied on thoughts also. In order to clear your perspective and make way for new thoughts, the old thoughts and prejudices has to be destructed. You have to erase or wipe incorrect pages of your life book even tear them apart so that a fresh page can be created to write a new story.

Now, the mode of destruction and the initial phase of construction are not very comfortable. Comparing it with construction of a building, first the view is damaged and there are broken pieces everywhere. Same in case of our mind, our old mindset and opinions are damaged and we have to change them. Everything in the home is scattered and nothing remains at its right place, same with us as our mood and thoughts are scattered and even our mind is not at its right place.

We have to adjust our sleeping and eating-place, similarly we have to adjust a lot when the destruction phase is running in our mind. When something is broken, the sounds are very annoying and cumbersome. When our heart is broken, the beautiful memories of happy moments of past are also very painful and disturbing. Soon we became frustrated blaming our decision for this construction phase and remembering how good our building used to look and how comfortable it was in past? But we know that we are helpless and we can never have our old building back.

Slowly, we recover and adjust to this construction phase. We start plotting for our new and better monument. We tear the old pages and start afresh, filling colors in the sketchbook of dreams. An optimistic person may be opting a mistake again, but its human nature. We can’t remain depressed and sad for long, either by our own willpower to rise again or for the sake of not reflecting a weak image and creating emotional drama everywhere. In the last phase of our construction phase, we tap our back or thank our destiny that after a short uncomfortable period (which never looks short when we are passing through it) the future is better and brings more happiness than what we thought in past this unfulfilled present will.

Aarakshan : movie review

Finally, I had watched one of the most awaited film of mine, ‘aarakshan’, yesterday. The promos were stunning, the topic is one of my favorite and something I had discussed the most and in depth. And when prakash jha is on the director’s chair, the expectations are always high. I thought to write a review for this movie after I had read some of its review. There is nothing much to hype about this film. The way it was marketed makes us curious about the content in the film. But the story is much different. But anyway it’s a great effort and this movie is a must watch.

Firstly, whatever you were watching in the promos comprises just a minor part of the film. 90% of the promos are taken from just first half hour of the film, the rest is completely different. Amitabh Bacchan, has played or I must say lived the character of prabhakar anand, principle of a college. Prabhakar gives utmost priorities to principles and ideals in his life. He helps poor and backward kids and give them free coaching. Even he has reserved some of the places in his college for backward institutions which give rise to a controversy as the college is private and there is no reservation policy in it.

People belonging to upper class oppose on his policy of giving entry to backward people but not to them even for trustee or management quota. Lots of people became his enemy but he remains firm to his values. He favors and helps Deepak kumar, a backward student, played by saif ali khan in every part of his academic life and even give him a part time job in college. Deepak is in a relation with his daughter poorvi, played be Deepika. Poorvi and Deepak are friend with Sushant, played by prateik babbar who is son of a rich man and trustee of college.

The scenario of enjoyable and peaceful college life suddenly changes when supreme court approves the decision of 27% reservation in government colleges. Sushant, who was sure of his admission to mass communication in a leading government college got disappointed and annoyed, when he failed to secure an admission. His fury and panic lead to differences between him and Deepak. There is a massive dialogue and argument between him and Deepak on the topic of reservation. Mithalesh Singh, played by Manoj Bajpayee is the vice principle, who runs 7 coaching classes and has partial and negative thoughts about backward people. He taunts Deepak for his success and comments on the lack of competitive spirit in backward people, and using reservation for an unfair advantage. The fights goes vehement with both sides exchanging lots of personal comments. Prabhakar, suspends sushant and had a hot discussion with Deepak, leading Deepak to separate his path and further breakup of Deepak and Poorvi.

This section comprises the first half hour of the film, which seems controversial and provoking to some extent, but if you wish that entire film is based on this then you are wrong. The rest 2 hours are based on Amitabh’s struggle against private coaching classes, his fight with Manoj and his inner power of sticking to his values. After resigning from college, due to conflict with mithlesh, Prabhakar’s home is illegally taken by Mithelesh to run his coaching. Prabhakar starts a free coaching for all the students, Deepak and Sushant also joins him, soon they have an army of lots of people giving their free services and the Mithlesh coaching business suffer and eventually collapse. The end of the film is diplomatic and has nothing to do with reservation. It ends with having free coaching classes in the college campus for poor students.

So this was the story. Now talking about reviews, firstly I don’t understand why the movie is named as aarakshan, as a major portion of the movie has nothing to do with it. May be it’s a good marketing strategy, or may be if Prakash has extended the reservation part. Political parties may have burned his creativity before the film has reached the theatres.

Prakash has kept an equal perspective for both parties. Dialogues, which are both entertaining and thought provoking are said for both parties. There are some minor characters and stories which gives light to major problems, like a bramhin whose father is peon, not getting admission in a college despite having 86% as some ST student has taken a general seat. It shows the faulty rule of reserved people having the right to take seats of general people which results in destroying the future of a bright talent. Sushant not getting admission due to reservation policy is another thing. The bank manager not getting promoted and his junior getting promoted due to reservation policy reveals another loop hole.

Manoj Vajpayee, saying that reservation policy would lead to flourishing of coaching classes further seems the most strong point. As general people have to join coaching to compete due to shortage of seats, and even in the reserved class, those having money would enjoy better luxuries and resources and would easily beat the poor ones. That’s a reality, Prabhakar’s wife saying that reservation is not the solution of injustice and if you want to give them a chance, then give them better resources in the beginning, good primary education so that they would be able to complete with general people is another great thing.

I would recommend all the people to go and watch this movie, as its both entertaining and thought provoking. You would have fun and will really enjoy the way this sensitive topic is dealt with covering all the essential issues. It’s a must watch movie.

MY FIRST STORY.....

She dialed the number again with not much support from her mind. As the ring started, her heartbeat began to rise. Lots of thoughts were puzzling her, worries and tension; even the ring became less audible. Speculations and predictions, where he could possibly be, or why he was not attending the call. When the no response tone came, it seemed her heartbeat stopped. She got numb, stupefied. The events of recent started flashing in her mind like a film and she was suddenly filled with guilt and remorse.

“Why didn’t you answer my call?” He asked with a mixed feeling of agony and anger.

“Because I was busy due to some work,” She replied without any expression on her face.

“But you may have called back later when you were free, it can’t be as if you were busy through out the day and didn’t see my missed calls”. His frustration level was rising but not by that intensity as his grief was.

“ Ohh come on, why do you boys make issue of everything? I never understand, I don’t think it’s a big deal to not attend your call or call back. There is no sense in this entire thing. You just seek for reasons to fight with me!!” She seemed to be unaffected by his weak protest.

“All right, so are we meeting today evening at the restaurant?” Realizing all his efforts of complaining are in vain, he switched the topic.

“NO, not today and not in a restaurant, what would the people think, you have no concern for my image”. Suddenly she was back in the fighting mood.

“But you often hang out there with other boys, your old friends. Then what’s the problem in coming with me”. He replied in a tone, not sure whether he must speak or not.

“Why do you interfere in my life so much? You have no right to comment on what I do and with whom. Ohh gosh!!! That’s the problem with you boys, if a girl is talks sweetly to you; you misinterpret it and try to act as her protector cum bodyguard. Why do you try to impose yourself on me? You are not my boy friend!” Her expressions were enough to make him drop all his weapons.

“All right, thank you for reminding me about my position in your life. I would remember that”. Words were coming out from his mouth after much filtering from great sorrow.

“Now there is no need of doing any emotional drama. Old friends are always the first priority, you came later in my life, don’t expect my full attention. Can’t you just simply act like a friend”. She left in a haste, furious; and he remained there transfixed, watching helplessly his self respect and ego burning in the fire of negligence..

She was now on the verge of bursting into tears. She was reminded of all the times she avoided him with out any valid reason or sometimes without any reason. She realized his worth in her life and his contribution in making her life happy. He was there for her through thick and thin without any complain for bad treatment on her part. He endured her fury, negligence and orders without any complains. He neither protested nor did he ever leave her side no matter how rude she was to him at times. But she misinterpreted his silence as his weakness and helplessness. She started to build the perspective, that no matter what happened he would never leave her. He is like a mental slave and she could use him and treat him as she wanted. She started to make fun of his care for her and his devotion to their friendship.

She now realized the pain that he faced when she was not talking to him intentionally. She now realized his helplessness and frustration when she didn’t answer his calls or texts when she could have. She just wanted to apologize once, cry on his shoulder and beg for forgiveness but he had disappeared. There was no sign of him for the past 4 days. She had called more than 8 times.

She remembered how she used to cut his phone just to attend others’ calls or for some useless work. She, for the first time in life felt that he has now become a vital part in her life and without him she is incomplete. Tears now began to come to her eyes and they brought more pain as she realized how he wiped her tears and said that no matter what happen I will always be there with you to wipe your tears and if I can’t , I will cry with you. But now he was not there to cry with her and she was the only culprit.

She prayed to god to give her a chance to rectify all her mistakes. She decided now to answer his every call and every text. She would go with him wherever he wanted to take her. She wouldn’t do any work that would make him suffer and she would talk to him kindly giving him the respect and attention he deservers. She won’t hang up the phone abruptly and won’t be furious without any reason. Suddenly her phone rang and whole the world appeared to come alive when she saw his number flashing.

“Hello, I am sorry I wasn’t able to receive your calls.”

“Shut up, who do you think you are, where were you, how dare you disappear without informing me, can you imagine how worried I was! How can you boys imagine that, you take everything so lightly and carelessly!”?

“My cell had some technical problem and today it was in silent mode and I had some work so I wasn’t able to check my phone.”

“Don’t lie, it’s not possible that you didn’t check your phone even once! Couldn’t you just call back once to check whether I am all right or not? But why would you bother! What I am to you. I hate you! I won’t talk with you again!” She hung the phone in a fury.

He called back again. She was smiling now watching how she wrecked all the resolutions made just a few minutes back. She now knew what she had to do. It was the beginning of a new sweet and healthy relation.