This is not ‘Gyan’.
But this is my Suicide story.
I write this
with a very heavy heart. Not that I knew Jiah Khan personally. Not that I
thought she was a fabulous actor, she was decent but very beautiful, she'd do very well indeed if she had willed. But she was woman, like me.
She was a person like us all. She was struggling with life and she gave up, she
quit.
Her suicide
story took me down memory lane. Not a pleasant one of course. The darkness is
mostly never pleasant. I certainly find it addictive and I have witnessed its
malignant face too. I have been there almost looking death in the eye, and
trust me ‘he’ looks hideous! I was
not sure if I was running towards him
or away from him. It was too painful
to live. It was too painful to breathe. It was too painful to struggle. And I
did attempt it, several times. Sleeping pills (tonne of them), anti-psychotics
overdose, all that I could find and buy, blades slitting through the veins of
my wrist, asphyxiation with my inhaler, I have tried it. But what surprises me now
is that I always called out for help at the end of it all. If I had not, I
would not be alive to write this very post.
It is not that
my suicide story is a foolish one. I was terribly depressed as is evident! I
would ‘see’ people who did not exist. I would hear voices of a lady, never
obliging silence. I would quite simply hallucinate. I was heavily drugged with
anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. I had dropped out of college. I attempted
going back a couple of times, in vain. I failed all the time I attempted to
even read a line from a book. I lost everything I had ever dreamed of doing. I
would look at the ceiling the entire day or just sleep because the pills made
me. I had no hope of recovery. The doctors had even suggested ‘institutionalization’.
It lasted for over 4 years. 4 years of my adult life, from 18 – 23 years of age,
when any girl is expected to touch the brink of beauty and social life with beaux & flirtations, I was at
home almost weighing 85kgs with no hope of recovery, completely cut off from
the outside world.
One day I got
tired of it all. I just got out of home and got a job as a ‘hostess’ in a
restaurant close to my house. I realised one thing that day. No ‘job’ is small.
Every job has a value to add to one’s life. When I was studying Physics back in
Bangalore, albeit doing terrific at it, I hadn’t imagined that, say, 4 years
from thence I would greet guests at a restaurant and pick up empty plates and
glasses. I hadn’t ever imagined working in the Hotel industry in 2007. But
today I am here. I work for a Hotel Brand. I am happy. I have fallen in love with it.
And the work I do adds immense value to my existence. As is evident from my
post ‘Another Cinderella Story’, it does certainly feel like fairy land. Here
comes the ‘Gyan’, I did not (and still do not) weigh a job or a situation in
life. I did not judge it. Judging a
situation makes us weak. It makes us pity ourselves and this pity is the ‘adder’
that spills venom into our existence.
Whatever you may be, be it a Mechanic, a Cobbler, a Steward, a Caller, a Sales Person, an Executive,
a CEO, a Managing Director, a House Wife, a Cook, a Maid, a Dog Walker, all you
need is to be passionate about what you are doing, to love your work, to give
it your 100 percent. It is not impossible. I do it. There are days I do not give
my 100 percent. I forgive myself for it. But I never stop loving what I do.
I have come a
long way from wanting to do theoretical physics to marketing hotels. But I do
not judge myself. I do not judge the path my life has taken. I only am proud
that I am happy; that I have made a commitment to happiness. All suicide stories
need not end at suicide. Mine began with it!
