My Suicide Story

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!