The Three Suicides of Jay Soni
Dear You,
It was not my remotest of intentions to have been telling you about a subject that would turn your day bluer… your night darker… But you and I are stuck in this void, an emptiness in our vacuum… a boredom that stretches and yawns and sits between us. I’ll merely try to extinguish this yawn as I sit waiting for the gates to open and let me in…
For I’m dead and waiting for my 21 grams of mass to be whizzed away to a destination that I am unaware of… today I shall know if there is heaven or if there’s a hell… if there’s a Devil or whether there’s a God… and as I wait next to my dead body that I lived in for 36 years… I feel peace… nah… I don’t feel it… it’s strange when I look at myself now… I am peace…
It took 3 attempts and a tremendous weight of depression, sadness and suffering to be able to realize… to achieve… freedom…
Three. Yes… the first one came at the age of twelve…
The First Suicide of Jay Soni
The one room apartment was cramped with ladies from the entire apartment complex… the lady of the house with her friends was running with plates filled with sweets back and forth between the kitchen and the room. In the center of the room sat the bride to be… She was soon to be married to the younger cousin of the apartment owner.
The marriage was next week. It was custom for the bride to be to visit the husband’s place before marriage and meet his friends, neighbors and family.
The woman living next door in the two room apartment was called out…
“She is here… Come soon!!!”
The lady quickly rushed to her bedroom to change… she came out and checked upon her son who was on the dining table and given two sheets of mock test paper to work on… he was trying hard to concentrate… but clearly he was distracted… yet he worked on the test… he had been at the receiving end of quite few thrashings from his mom for the last few days. His grades were down, the cricket fever was up and evenings were being spent struggling to complete his homework amidst noises of his friends playing cricket on the grounds below.
Sri peeked through the open door… “Jay… hey lets play ping pong”
It was the last straw.
“Mom’s gone to Ravi’s house. Let me check with her.”
“Ok I’ll get the ball and bats and see you there”
The housemaid warned him when she saw the books closed on the dining table and the sports shoes being picked up from the shoe rack.
“Baba… don’t… Your mom will not like it… and neither will your Dad when he comes to hear about this in the evening…”
“I don’t think so… I haven’t gone down to play for more than a week… I’m going”
The rebellious spirit was in full flow…
He rushed into the neighbor’s apartment… The noise, the laughter… women rushing all around the apartment. The room in which the bride to be sat with women all around her…
“Mom… Mom…”
“What are you doing here?”
She was irritated… she was trying to have a conversation with the bride-to-be.
“No”
“Mom… please”
“Go home… I’ll talk to you later”
The noise increased… somebody had cracked a joke in the corner of the room… another screamed from the other corner inquiring what the joke was about… the laughter transferred from one end to the other…
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“Mom… I want to play ping pong… I’ll do the test after that…”
She looked at him in anger
“Didn’t I ask you to go home”
A few more women entered the room with sweet dishes… a few moved to talk to the bride-to-be… the noise in the room was increasing…
“Mom… I want to play now”
She slapped him hard on his cheek.
He fell back a few steps.
The noise in the room went dead… Everyone was now looking at the mother and her son.
She got up and took him by the collar… and dragged him out… mumbling a soft apologetic “Sorry” to the lady of the house.
In the bedroom of the house she slapped him again… and again…
“How many times do I have to tell you one thing”
He was crying…
She slapped him again.
“Don’t you listen??? Can’t your stupid ping pong wait till I come back???”
She took his hair in her grip and shaked his head…
“Now why the hell have you stopped talking?”
She slapped him on the other cheek. His face turned the other way where he saw Sri standing by the door with two ping pong bats in his hand. There was fear in his eyes. The housemaid was peeking from the kitchen. She motioned Sri to leave.
The mother left Jay in the bedroom and walked back to the neighbor’s apartment.
Jay was still crying. Then the thought flew in. He was humiliated in front of a room full of women and then in front of his friend. The thought was followed by pictures of women looking at him and his mom… he saw Sri meekly standing next to the apartment door… the thought of humiliation killed him…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And I got up from the bed, still crying and locked the bedroom door… I wanted to teach her a lesson… one that would give her pain as much as she had given me in the last half hour… and more… for the rest of her life.
I picked up my pyjamas and wrapped one of its legs around the neck and then… I pulled. I pulled hard. I looked in the mirror. My face was turning red as tears kept rolling down.
I did this exercise for about fifteen minutes, at the end of which I found… I was still not dead.
I repeated the exercise. This time with more force. My body was shaking and I could see spit dripping down the corner of my mouth… My head felt like it would burst open… I kept pulling… the face was red… the body had started to shake again… tears were rolling down my eyes… and then I gave up… I was tired with all that pulling… I lay on the bed and before I knew it… I was fast asleep…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Though I had failed… the thought stuck in my head… I came close again to freeing myself from all the pain ten years later…
[ to be continued - Chapter 2]
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January 18th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
The 21 grams of mass that’s whizzed away… when an enemy of gravity weighs in… levitating one to that faraway nearness… pulsing one into daylight swarming… what is it that I fear… can you please look inside me… a negative toad hopping on sand waves… intellectual inertia… a momentary delusion… transactional demetia… I will commit my cubicide again… boss is calling… who am I now… has anyone seen my mind… ???
apologies for the psychobabbling… but this piece is… W O W!!! mind blowing!!! Thank you, Oz, for sharing! Sau saal jiyo mere yaar!
January 19th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Finally!!. I missed these stories. can’t wait for the next part
January 20th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Welcome back Oz…As N said..missed your stories…when’s the next part coming…make it fast…please…..
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
[...] [ Click here for Chapter 1 ] [...]