Everyone comes with an expiry date. But unlike man-made packaged stuff, the Ultimate-Maker-made human body does not bear any warning of its exit time. This glorious uncertainty encourages a delusion of immortality, an assumed assurance of seeing as many daylights as is ‘humanly’ possible and is at the root of all material motivations as well as spiritual quests. Indeed, such hope, the unceasing commas despite the inevitable full stop, is the very essence of living. Contrarily, even a stray thought of death would make living worse than real death
Given such paranoia over death, does it not go against human nature that one should consider advancing the irrevocable return ticket by killing oneself? Can zest for life coexist with an itch for self-destruction? But alas, such a paradox is a deadly reality, what with those contemplating suicide on the rise as never before. And worse, the numbers of those who actually consummate such thoughts is zooming, particularly in the last one decade. India alone accounts for more than one lakh suicides annually. Even as an unreliable official data, this is bad news.
A spate of suicides in TN in just the last thirty to forty days rings an ominous bell. Despite sounding statistically soulless, most of them fit into all the standard textbook cases of suicide. The provocations range from debt to depression, loss and love in relationships and poverty to various perversities, but of late also include seemingly very trivial troubles, like for instance a girl who ended her life because she could not buy a, well, textbook. The obvious inference is that more and more people are less and less inclined to face the torments of life and prefer to take the ‘easy’ way out, even if it be ‘a permanent solution to a very temporary problem’, as some wise one said.
Suicides were low in traditional societies and were so even till the nineties in India. It is not that problems were less then; in fact survival itself was a challenge. Forget religion. Even several scientific studies have pointed out that a certain spiritual outlook that transcends the mundane and the material helps in handling the hitches and hurdles that dot our paths. But in a maddening, modern milieu wherein mental space is minimal for introspection over higher meanings of life and existence, a suicidal thought can strike as a fatal flash of lightening. An extra few seconds of self-restraint can save many lives, but most are in a hurry, probably fearing exactly such a hesitation.
Suicide is now a lifestyle mental disease that has to be addressed through personal counselling of prospective candidates, which is about all of the populace. This has to be a national exercise that sensitises individuals as sensible beings and also as part of families and society with commitments to both. The futility of killing oneself should be driven home, by invoking the joys of living, even if ephemeral or quoting the scriptures, if it will work. But by our law, a suicide attempt is a criminal act. This is a quixotic legal scenario that actually penalises someone for surviving death, despite his/her own best (or shoddy?) efforts. Though our law, thankfully here, has been as lax in implementing this as it is in all other areas, the proviso should go.
There are counter-arguments galore that favour ending painful lives and the right to determine one’s own time on earth. Such advocates lack imagination. There is always something to live for and a way out. At least, let’s find out. It’s not for me to snap and cut short the leash and lease of life; let the One who started it all do the dirty job too!
Meanwhile, for those on the edge, here is one from Roosevelt: ‘If you have reached the end of the rope, just tie a knot and hang on’. By your hand and not by the neck, if I may amplify, just in case.
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