Swastik...the Martyr for Nothing?!!!!

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 1^st or 2^nd 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 21^st 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.

Let the bus arrive on time

Love is just like someone waiting for a bus. When the bus comes, you look at it and you say to yourself "ooh...so full....no more available sit". "I'll wait for the next one". So you let the bus go and waited for the second bus. Then the second bus came, you looked at it you say, "eew...this bus is so old...so shabby!" So you let the bus leave and again, decided to wait for the next bus. After a while another bus came, it's not crowded, not old but you said, "eeee...not air-conditioned ...better wait for the next one". So again you let the bus go and decided to wait for the next bus. Then the sky started to get dark as it is getting late. You panicked and jumped immediately inside the next bus. It is not until much later that you found out that you had boarded the wrong bus! So you wasted your time and energy waiting for what you want! Even if an air-conditioned bus comes, you can't ensure that the air-conditioned bus won't break down ! or whether or not the airconditioner will be too cold for you. So people... wanting to get what you want is not wrong. But it wouldn't hurt to give other person a chance, right? If you find that the "bus" doesn't suit you just press the red button and get off the bus!(as simple as that!)

Empowering priorities

They say, “Exception proves the rule.”

Heisenberg stated that certainty in position and momentum of a particle cannot prevail simultaneously. My dad is one of those few exceptions who defy this law of uncertainty.

I have always known my dad to be an ‘ideal dad’, doing every special thing for his darling li’l daughter. And it is difficult for a person who sees dad in this role to visualize him as a dedicated workman. My dad works in a power plant. He is no doubt, a workaholic; and on my visit to his office premises, I have derived that he his quite important and sought after, not just in office, but in entire township. Or perhaps a greater are than that. And in spite of all the airs, dad stands firm on his grounds.

Coal is extracted from the mines and burnt in furnaces to produce thermal energy, which is used to produce electricity. This is what happens in every power plant. The general processes of operation, commissioning, managing and directing are all the same. Dad has to do the same thing in every power plant; so changing from one company to other in the power sector is no big deal! Or so I thought, till I read between the lines of my dad’s mind. Had I been a senior official in a company where I’ve worked for 25 years, owning a huge office and humongous respect of thousands of people, it would have been equally difficult for me to let my hedonism give way to evanescence. That is human instinct- to be scared of an uncertainty, even if it might be one step closer to the zenith.

“The heart does things for reasons that reason doesn’t understand.”

Dad lover his job and his colleagues; and changing job may initially not give dad a better life. I mean, if you have cranberries, all you can do is make them less sour, you can’t altogether transform them into sugar. Incidentally, I am the paradox to which this situation happens to be the only solution. Dad might be joining a new company, but I am the power plant he is worried about. No down, I’ve always been provided with the anthracite, but now I need an efficient resource manager for sustainable development. My dad is the most efficient person. That’s the reason why every power plant needs dad.

Everything in life changes, but change is a constant. We get used to the changes. Dad makes his own rules. He has the momentum; he will soon determine his position.

What's in a . ?

The figure "." creates a paranoid as to how it is to be named. Some say it is dimensionless; some call it a dot, while others are flooded with weird names such as point, centre, full stop etc. for something that is next to invisible.

My little brother calls the little thing a ‘taalshaans’. Before I explain further, let me tell you, that my brother Nik is an unusually good looking kid. He has, what is called a beauty spot on his chin. And this beauty spot is the same figure(as mentioned above); wearing a black color. When asked,’ What is that black mark on your chin?’ , he says, ‘It is a taalshaans.’ ‘Taalshaans’ or ‘Jolbhora’ is one of the most popular Bengali sweets, and undoubtedly, Nik’s favorite. And he is privileged to have right on his chin. And lick it whenever he wants to.

For convenience, let’s call the figure ‘Anonymous’. In the beginning, I ignored the taalshaans situation and went on pondering over nomenclature of Anonymous. Days later, Nik saw a pimple on my face, which resembled Anonymous. This time, he call it ‘Anuswar’. I stared at him awe-struck. Before I realized what happened, he exclaimed,’ I like the bindis on our shirt!!’ He was referring to the bunch of Anonymouses printed on my birthday dress. The goose bumps popping up on my skin pricked my brain. Not pricked , it provided an acupressure therapy for my brain to heal its pain of failure to identify anonymous. I started discovering its mysteries.

A black Anonymous to the chin of a beautiful child is what ‘taalshaans’ is to our tongues-a sweet and pleasant essence. ‘Anuswar’ in Hindi and Bengali languages provides a nasal distortion in the pronunciation of a word. So does the Anonymous to one’s face when it wears the garments of a pimple. A woman wears bindi between her eyebrows to look beautiful. Being another incarnation of Anonymous, it plays the same role on a shirt.

This is the truth of both life and the lifeless. Everyone is born anonymous and is identified by what he does. Like Anonymous, a person is called a child when he plays around, a student when he studies, a doctor, teacher, or engineer when in society, a parent by his own children and so on. But like the appearance of Anonymous, man’s soul is eternal.

Now ‘ . ‘ reminds me of Shakespeare’s famous saying,

“What’s in a name? That, if you call a rose by any other name smells as sweet!”

In spite of being dimensionless, it is the beginning of all dimensions. Everything that exists is a collection of .’s misplaced haphazardly. And we articulately join several such lifeless .’s to shape our lives…………