A girl came up & asked me the way to the Botany Dept,i barely looked at her & mumbled out the instructions...probably she was feeling hungry too...asked me if she could sit down next to me & have her food sitting next to me. I shrugged...she sat down gratefully.
We sat side by side...like two mannequins...no conversation...nothing...i was feeling too hungry to talk & she felt awkward eating her tiffin after i refused her offer.
Finally, i asked her what brought her to my campus....An AIIMS post graduate in Biochemistry...she wanted a Ph.D...fast,real fast...i don't remember when the conversation turned to the topic of suicide but i got to hear so many real life accounts from her, that i've lost count....she had been staying in the AIIMS hostel along with young aspiring doctors since her graduation & post grad days at AIIMS.
Sordid tales....suicide notes written by brilliant students...end of a life...candles that blew out prematurely…
The one that chilled me to the bones, was that of a post grad student from AIIMS who went on to National Institute of Immunology, for his Ph.D He had been her friend but had been depressed for quite some time coz his girl had left him for someone else.
Half my mind was elsewhere- delving deep into the dark alleys of my recuperating heart where tiny scrolls of secrets lay embedded like treasure chests on an ocean bed. But the girl sitting next to me said something that jerked me out of my stupor. In sharp contrast to my earlier listless, barely interested demeanor-I turned my full attention to her...oh my god! She hadn’t realized she had switched tracks from a third person narrative to a first person narrative....earlier, she had been saying...’he shudn’t have taken such a drastic step and ended his life by consuming that lethal chemical from his laboratory to ‘ Life can get frustrating but I should resist such a temptation’....a slip of a tongue ...but the raw feeling was written all over her carefully chosen words and I felt a shiver run down my spine as i realized i was face to face with a potential target who was trying to come to terms with her decision of taking the drastic step.
Her next words confirmed my suspicion, she said ‘ if he could have met someone at that crucial juncture, who could have talked him out of it...maybe he would have been alive today’..
She’s asking for help...no, she is begging me to talk her out of her suicidal tendencies...she’s picked up a random stranger like me to counsel and help her out...i’ve got to soothe her...wait, i’ve got to stay calm myself coz my heart is hammering real hard and my hands are shaking a bit coz i know what it feels like when u feel suicidal....‘
Hey’, i say to her and ...i cough a bit...to mask the nervous tone, steady myself and broach the topic of my childhood, transport her to those sunny days of my life that were full of laughter and naive innocence....i encourage her to open up...gently...coax her to uncoil her complex self ....i congratulate myself secretly....she took a bite of the bait i dangled in front of her...and now she’s hooked! I exposed a slice of my childhood, to enable her to speak about hers & thankfully the plan worked.
I cajole her...to go on, to speak up ...i keep my restless nature under wraps and turn into a good listener...we talk for hours…i pretend I don’t know what is going on in her mind, she has a satisfied look on her face, content that she has fooled me…lulled me into a false illusion….i let her play along…but under that thin veneer ….my mind is working furiously, against time….trying to think of the right things to say to avoid aggravating her…I can almost picturize her standing at the edge of a cliff, while the waves surge beneath….and i desperately want to pull her back
A beautiful sensation…the free fall down such a great height….almost flying…the sea gulls can join in too….the waves hungrily look up…waiting to devour the body….
The mellow afternoon hours sheds her glaringly canary yellow off-shoulder dress and dons a sensual dusky evening gown, somewhere nearby, my batchmates are attending their lectures ….a seat remains unfilled in that class coz I am sitting outside, trying to save a soul that’s sent me an S.O.S …Not everyday, do u get a chance to save a life…..we talk about a lot of things....they lie locked within me...maybe someday i shall write about it...
I see a change in her eyes, a steely resolution….
I watch her standing near the cliff edge…contemplating….the waves part and pebbles stare back at her…she turns her back towards death and walks away…
3 comments:
right...not everyday do we get a chance to save a life...and when did get the chance, u excelled superbly...
i too am aware how it feels to be suicidal...
Sen->It was worse than that,i could feel a precious life slipping away...i call her every once in a while...just to be rest assured that she's not upto anything silly.
Vidhi->I keep a sharp eye on her nowadays,sms her etc.
"i too am aware how it feels to be suicidal"
same emotions....similar intestiny...why do some of us have to go through such agony?
suicidal tendencies in top medical schools are underscored by the sheer numbers. It was so vividly portrayed in "doctors"...
She was fortunate you saw through her insinuations. I wonder how many will find someone who can do that, and still further someone who wont run away scared. You did good, lady! Whatever much you'd have learned that day, that period in class, pales immeasurably against a humal life...
But, are you sure it was a "slip of a tongue"
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