The reason for his act is, and will always remain a mystery. The guy was a good student, he was the head boy. Everything was fine. I was studying that morning. When I checked my phone that afternoon about 1 pm, I called him, he was unreachable. And then I got the next call at 1:30pm, from a classmate, he asked me to call everyone I knew and enquire if Swastik’s at their place. His dad had apparently called up a few of his friends and had already informed the police; that was when I came to know that he left home at 10 am, I didn’t pay much heed, because I knew he was playing a prank, was out at the game parlour, or for a movie, would come back before evening. His parents were informed after 3 pm, and I was told at 3:30 pm that he had jumped off a building and was hospitalised. I was relieved- he was found! I thought he had jumped off the 1st or 2nd floor and broken a few bones. I was at the Aakash institute, attending the special classes along with two more friends. Two of my other friends were at the hospital already. I texted one of them, enquiring about his condition. And his reply was, “ he is no more”. He was brought dead to the nursing home. And we left the class, we couldn’t carry on, the class would be disturbed. His parents apparently didn’t see his face. One guy did, I’d rather not tell you how he described it to me.
Now, coming back to the “why” of the story: the guy was, as I mentioned before, a know-it-all kind of a person, and was wise enough to know that suicide is a crime. I had noticed a changed behaviour past the month, but I thought it was normal, you know, we all had exams and we were all worried. The guy has always been an escapist. He had bunked many tests this year. Owing to his reputation as a good student, he was excused. He pretended to be ill, but he usually wasn’t. That is in fact, why I ignored when I was told he was missing. From his changed behaviour, I deciphered that he was up to something, and he would try to escape his pre-boards too. I didn’t have the slightest clue that he had planned for something so fatal. And yes, it was planned. He carried a bag to the mall, which contained a chemistry book[we had our chemistry Paper the next day, and he told his dad that he had lost his book, he sent his dad out to buy the book, took the chance,and left home] and his diary. And the diary had a neatly written plan of what he was to do. He had mentioned everything, starting from breaking the SIM card to.. well everything. He had also written his dad’s mobile number down on a piece of paper.
From what I know of Swastik, he couldn’t have been prepared for his afterlife. He just wanted to escape his exams this year, and start afresh for exams 2012. And it all happened. Because the guy watched a lot of movies and hallucinated after every movie[he had been impersonating Harry Potter for a week after watching the movie]. The previous day[ he was with us then, chatting, laughing..] we were all discussing ‘3 Idiots’, and ‘Raju’s’ suicidal act in the movie. And I suppose, Swastik expected that to happen, he expected to survive. Or maybe he didn’t. I don’t know! No one does. Its not easy to accept his absence.. we are all breaking down again and again! And all hail the Principal, DPS Ruby Park, she feels what he did was ‘cowardly’ and he didn’t deserve a 2 minute silence. How could she use the word? Doesn’t she know, that killing oneself requires the strongest of nerves?! Of course he was selfish, unjustified, unreasonable, mean, foolish, but he was our friend too! He was loved! He was their student! He was the head boy. And he was just another human being like all of us, who deserves prayers for his departed soul, who needs empathy.
As for the clichéd exam story, people have been against exams since ages, right? But nothing has changed! It’s not that easy to replace an age-old practice. And how can people think of avoiding competitions in the 21st century? This is the demand of the era, we cannot trespass it! It is the rule of nature. Blaming the system is not a solution to anything. One has to abide by it, or change it completely, what happens between avoiding and changing is irrelevant[as observed, people neither abide, nor change, they have been doing the intermediate things, hence saddening the situation]. We lost our friend, would that change the system? Or would he come back if it did?
They say that Swastik has scored more than 80% in the preboard Maths paper, and 9.5 out of 10 in the previous chemistry test[he had been constantly scoring low in maths and had bunked all previous chemistry tests]. Maybe the school is bluffing to avoid allegations of exam pressure, or maybe he really scored these marks. Who knows? For the mysteries have all been cremated along with his body.
