Musings on a Dark Night

• Did you ever experience your inner-self being torn down? It being torn upright down to pieces, have you experienced this pain? Have you heard the mother of a person crying upon the death of her young? Did the shrillness in her voice make you tremble down to your feet? Such is the sorrow of losing a loved one.

There was a time when I was filled with joy and exuberance. A kid who played day in and day out. Scaled up the tops of hillocks, jumped in the puddles, fought dragons, and you bet I did much more. Life was fun back then. Now, I am insecure. Devoid of friendships in the beginning stages of my stay at IITK, I am afraid of losing the ones that I made later. When one finds oneself in this stage, they become desperate to cling on to the bonds that they made. And so did I. Giving my best in relationships and not getting it back left me distraught. No one actually cared about me, even when I did for them. Life was hard.

The fact that I was a student from a reserved category made me feel that I never belonged here. The memes that showed up, only made it worse. It made me feel that I stole someone’s seat and forced my way in. People could not get the hang of me. They did not understand how I was the way I was and the worst part was most of them didn’t even bother to understand my situation. Living in solace was what I ended up doing.

I could sense all of us going crazy. Everyone has their own reasons, be it the academics that were there or the crazy lockdown that is happening now. Now that I look back upon it, all of us were running after one thing or the other. Starting with getting into IIT, to getting good grades, or that sports team you wanted to be part of or running for one’s own career, to drowning oneself in things when you “failed” to reach your goal. I have seen people not recovering from them. I have seen myself not recovering from them. Maybe the reason lies deep down in the way our society has evolved. You won’t see anyone talking about how to tackle failure. As rightly put by Sushant Singh Rajput, “We all have plans of what to do when we succeed, but no one has plans of what to do when they fail”. What are we running for? What are we losing in that process? How is it affecting us?

Life is hard, I understand that. But suicide? Hearing that Sushant Singh Rajput is no more with us, left me shattered. I have lost some of my friends and family members to this monstrosity, but the person who advocated to stand up for oneself, going away from that rendered me speechless. How can we keep a check on one another? What do we do to stop judging our peers and accept our differences? What does it take for people to love each other? What does it take to tip the world to the beautiful side?

Have you ever, ever, ever missed the person who won’t be coming back, whatsoever? The pain and guilt that you had to carry, for not being able to talk to them and listen to their problems when they were around you, have you ever experienced that?

The questions asked in the article above are daunting and sadly real. Here are some more to understand where you stand after reading them:

• How did you react when the author said that they belonged to a reserved category?
• Do you think your thought process was justified?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you had this huge pain or guilt in your heart while carrying on with your daily lives? How did you manage?
• What can we as a student community do to make it easier for people around us to have a better life the next day?
• How important is it to keep a check on others?
• How important is it to ask for help?

Mental Health issues are real. People around us are facing problems that one can hardly imagine. Covering up with a shell, lying to oneself is how they move forward. Thinning away from their original selves and letting it go. Why is this happening? Why are we harming each other? Why are we pulling down on those who help?

Facing reality is often harsh, but talking helps. Remember that you matter. The people around you matter. It is time we started keeping a check on our friends, families and loved ones. It is time we learn to ask for help when needed. For we can not let this world turn to the cruel side anymore.