A student of NIFT recently (allegedly) committed suicide.
Jiah Khan committed suicide some years ago.
I clearly remember the day attractive model and my good friend Viveka Bhabajee had planned meeting me on Tuesday for a swim. Fun, smiling always, slim attractive Viveka. I never saw any expression of sadness or pain in her, even though we spoke often and were fond of each other. She did confide her break-up with me, but never did she sound defeated, Infact she started her own event company and decided to work alone. The day of the appointed swim she didn’t show up and just a few days later I was horrified to learn that she’d hung herself to death.
Before that fellow compeer Nafisa Joseph- self-assured and composed, we compeered many corporate evenings, before which I would be backstage looking at my cue cards. Nafisa was happy to chatter ‘happily’ on the phone. Not long after one such event, I heard of the eerie incident of her hanging herself.
Jiah Khan committed suicide some years ago.
I clearly remember the day attractive model and my good friend Viveka Bhabajee had planned meeting me on Tuesday for a swim. Fun, smiling always, slim attractive Viveka. I never saw any expression of sadness or pain in her, even though we spoke often and were fond of each other. She did confide her break-up with me, but never did she sound defeated, Infact she started her own event company and decided to work alone. The day of the appointed swim she didn’t show up and just a few days later I was horrified to learn that she’d hung herself to death.
Before that fellow compeer Nafisa Joseph- self-assured and composed, we compeered many corporate evenings, before which I would be backstage looking at my cue cards. Nafisa was happy to chatter ‘happily’ on the phone. Not long after one such event, I heard of the eerie incident of her hanging herself.
Not taking away from
the anguish of their tragic end, one has to say there is an unfortunate element
of self-absorption here, where the person is so enveloped in his own woes
that all else is another universe. What of the parents (for
instance) who nurtured you and spent three-fourths of their life caring and
sharing and lauding your little or big achievements, and having heartaches over
your trifling woes. A thought spared for them would've have been the red signal
that should've braked the devastation express! I have this pet peeve that
education systems need to change their fundas. As Calvin grouses to Hobbes,
"For some reason, they'd rather teach us stuff that any fool can look
up!" Yo Calvin! We need lessons on 'Living Life’ EQ, communication, a
‘real world' perspective that would slash the narcissism quotient out significantly.
Not to mention it would
instill values such as caring and empathy for those around. Apart from which
they might also learn to reach out when and also reaching out when tormented
and clinically depressed and unable to cope with the pressures of education,
urban competitiveness, social pressures, and especially that one is barraged
within the glamour world. Counseling is mandatory in many schools in America,
and if one seeks guidance and help and is not ashamed to reach out, one's
troubles shrink. (The bonus here is that there would be less rape and murder
too).
Jiah Khan had tried to
kill herself some years ago by slitting her wrists. Should not her mother and
peers have enforced counseling and intervened at that time? Perhaps we don’t
take depression and being suicidal as a malaise in our country. It is those
closest to us that miss the signals sadly.
I just feel that while
the world feels it was a soured romance, it is a deep-seated loneliness, an
inability to cope with the social pressures of fame and wanting more fame and
recognition, the feeling of fear of performance in the world of a glaring
public and media and one’s own fears of failure that push a person already
suffering depression to take such a drastic step.
My mind goes back to
Alexander McQueen. What made McQueen, the acclaimed creative genius said to be
worth twenty million pounds, commit suicide at 45 at his stunning two million
pound flat in Mayfair, central London? He was doing work he liked, achieved
recognition, success, money, fame, adulation, and was one of the greatest
creative geniuses of our times. Not enough reason to endure living? Are there
further barriers to the elusive state called happiness? Did he see the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow, on the other side of life? Perhaps!
The ostensible reason
was that the fashion designer – high on cocaine- slashed his wrists with a
ceremonial dagger on the eve of mum Joyce's funeral was the grief of her
parting. But we lose people through life. Life is a series of loss, from the
day we are born. So then what is the way out to grapple with the pain, loss, and
suffering? I’d say the only way out is within. What comes to mind is a famous
quote about happiness –‘chasing happiness is like chasing a butterfly in a
garden. Try to capture it and it evades you. Sit on a bench and close your eyes
- it will come and rest on your shoulder’.
McQueen's psychiatrist
shared with the inquest that he felt constantly let down by people. By friends
whom he had felt exploited him that they had taken advantage of his fame and he
had felt "let down" by some long-term relationships. And this only
highlights the same point that could have been made to Jiah Khan and even
Viveka and Nafisa Joseph before her, that the very elusive happiness does not
come from relationships. Nor even from material triumphs. The bottom line is
you cannot force love and longing. It has to emanate from within and when it
didn’t materialize for these lovely girls, they ended their own lives. Sadly.
Because the men have moved on, one of the men got married just this month. But
the families of these lovely women suffer a wound that may never heal.
One cannot be obsessive
about money, house, friends, and faithfulness from those friends, because of these
wants and expectations prevent peace. Friendship, companionship, and bonding
like the forest, animals and trees are fast getting denuded in our fast age,
relatives and brothers and sisters are materialistically dismantling each
other.
Relationships and friendships like greenery and wildlife is another
causality to man’s material and technical evolution. One can only do what comes
one's way and try to be serenely absorbed in that. Remember Fountainhead’s
Howard Roark? His greatest joy was the journey, his creation, his obsession
with his perfection. Sorrow comes from resisting reality and from discontent.
One has to flow with life and accept the letdowns as teachers- to grow
with the good and not so good. That is the only way to equanimity. Sorrow is
what we allow ourselves to reach in and wallow. Please let’s live life one day
at a time. I’d have said that Jiah, Viveka, Nafisa, and Mc Queen. Let Go.
Because you can’t change people and boyfriends, you cannot cling and you cannot
change the past. People are what they are.
So then what is the
route to happiness? I believe that there is no such thing as permanence in any
state, not even happiness. But one can snatch happy times, learn to savor the
moments and like Wordsworth so aptly put it, stand and stare. Do we really ever
stop to enjoy nature (whatever little of it we have left)? Greenery is a great
healer, and walking barefoot in the grass is therapeutic as is hearing music
one enjoys. The good life is not a place you arrive at, it is a lens you bring
to the place you are at right now! So snatch happiness and enjoy the journey.
Because there is no destination at all but happy moments create a bank balance
of fortitude and delight that you delve into when the going gets a touch.
It
makes you into a survivor than a quitter!
Nisha JamVwal
Follow Nisha on http://nishajamvwal.blogspot.com/
Tweet her on @nishjamvwal
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