Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Life, or something like that...

Seven suicides in the last 24 hours, thats a lot by any measurement even if you concede that Delhi is a megapolis. But then again, these were people who killed themselves in areas under the jurisdiction of the Delhi police, god knows the statistics from other parts of the NCR. And pill-popping has reached endemic levels in Bangalore.
There have been enough times I've been depressed, I mean very low down, thinking I haqve no self-worth. Usually, its been a bottle that has given me companionship, I've drunk myself silly, passed out, woken up with a hangover and felt shitty for putting myself through the mother of all headaches. Despite everything, and that includes the degeneration of my personal life over three years ago, I've never wanted to kill myself.
And yet, according to some people, I'm pretty much a prime candidate for being a wrist-slitter or a pill popper, coming from a broken home and all that. Yes, but my tormented life history drove me in another direction altogether - do things that shut out the past from your head and don't think about it. This does not mitigate the fact that for years I've been running away from my past never reconciling myself to what happened, and the inability to do so has made me a complete jackass when it comes to relationships. But then again, I guess I'm not much different than most other men between the ages of 25-30. But that is another story.
I've never worked out why people jump off buildings, shoot themselves or just consume poison. Sometimes, I believe, as in the case with the farmers in Vidarbha, it is the very simple fact that of the ease with which you can kill yourself. I'm sure if I had a freely available Beretta lying around, I would be more edgier, maybe more inclined to kill myself after a bad day at work or after heartbreak. Instead, I just punish my liver and nowadays I'm even going easy on that because after all, what has my poor liver done to deserve such madness.
I've sadly known people who have killed themselves, for whatever reasons. I've known (and know) people who almost killed themselves but either conscience (that of breaking their parents) or fate (being found by a friend before they succeeded) saved them. I've asked them why they decided to end it all, and somehow they can't give me a clear answer. With the benefit of hindsight sometimes the decisions you made look insanely stupid. I can say that about certain things that I have done as well, things that I've never been proud of later and still irritate me today, sometimes to the point of becoming obsessive.
We all have inner demons that we have to face up to. I know I've got 'issues', some of them rather serious. But tackling the demons that are playing with your cerebrum does not involve blowing your brain out. The demons will always exist and you'll never be able to get rid of them, but the key is to make peace with them. Otherwise, we'll all be condemned to become another statistic that we read about in the morning papers.
------
I'm off to the deep south today, any suggestions where I can catch dinner at Chennai? A reasonably priced dinner.
------
On the musical front, I've been listening to a lot of new music and for some strange reason I really like the All-American Rejects. Musically they might sound a bit pop-rock-ish, but dang, their lyrics are good.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What kind of food you want ?
South Indian/N Indian,etc..
Veg or Non Veg ?

reasonably priced dinner differs with ppl. i dont know how much u consider reasonably priced

K said...

Ended up spending the night in the hotel only - a place called RainTree, on St Mary's Road, very nice new property. They had a nice club called Havana, but it seems that the Chennai authorities are as anal as those in Bangalore and shut down at 11. Did my Tamarind Rice, Rasam, Sambar and Curd Rice for Lunch.
Plus, whats with the Punjabification of Chennai of all places in the duniya!
PS : Still in Chennai...

Anonymous said...

unfortunately I am not in Chennai.

>>Punjabification of Chennai
Did u tried any south indian fare ?
Saravana Bhavan or Ponnusamy or Anjappar ?