He just left: ordained or not, beyond our ken...
She was on her way home from home, and received a call: a call that changed everything as she had known it or knew it or would ever know it again.
This may sound as a completely bizarre way to start a write up, but how many homes does one have, what is home and how and why do we call it so?
Her home had just been blown away, smashed into a zillion smithereens. Her feet felt like lead and she could barely breathe, she was returning from her parents’ place, on her way back to her husband and kids, three wonderful sons, when she was told. Her middle one was no more. He had decided to call it a day, he gave up. He just left. He was all of fourteen.
To many of us, home is where the heart is, to many of us it’s just brick and mortar to others it’s a place, a person or few things that smell of home. But, to an increasingly large number of people who mingle with us every day, home is only inside their head. They are, for several reasons, unable to share, communicate or just plain and simply express. They may go through a gamut of emotions like the rest of us, anger, frustration, excitement and the like but somewhere deep inside they are alone. Alone, not because they do not want to merge, but perhaps because the world is cruel, judgmental and divisive; it forces them to the fringes every single moment of every single day. That in no way is a reason to quit, or give up on life, but it happens and is happening of late, a little too much a little too soon.
She alighted from the bus and waited by the roadside, turned to stone. She couldn’t weep, her heart felt as if had been ripped out of her body and what she heard beating outside was his. His innocent, his pained his wronged heart. Her mind tried to focus, her soulless body waited to be picked up by family.
The system is demanding, unapologetic and there is more negativity than positivity around, live and let live is an adage few identify with. Institutions are only concerned with commercials, statistics and percentages, winning by hook or crook and being flashed in the news for the most frivolous of reasons. There is a battle for the top slot at any cost. There is a dearth of people who can call a spade a spade and catch the bull by the horns. Parents, teachers everyone that can make a difference are in denial or are adding fuel to fire.
Systems that need to be in place with regards to mental and emotional health are missing, or are so archaic that one would rather do without them. There is little or no exposure to incidents or literature that talk of valour, of survival of respecting life and toiling on without comparisons or of being content.
Sometimes there are no answers, sometimes one closes ones eyes and wishes things away, but change is not about wishing away, it is about acceptance, it is about tolerance, it is about getting to the root of an issue, resolving it or alleviating the pain it may cause : it is about solutions & remedies.
The cold piercing reality began to slowly take shape in his mind, his blood froze as it sank in, his gut was dry, his eyes wouldn't stop pouring out a torrent of misery. He had worked night and day to give them a good life, of happiness & comfort.
He had tried he had done all he could to be a good father or had he, he thought as he was faced by a volley of stinging barbs that paralysed him, he ceased to think, in the aftermath he ceased to be. Questions hung unanswered limp from a night of tragedy.
As far as he knew they all were happy too. What made him take a drastic step he couldn't fathom, he went about the daily machinations wondering whether it was really the survival of the fittest?
But who could be called fit, was it the law of the jungle that prevailed.
In the limited understanding of life and death another innocent life was snuffed before it could bloom...
©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap
This may sound as a completely bizarre way to start a write up, but how many homes does one have, what is home and how and why do we call it so?
Her home had just been blown away, smashed into a zillion smithereens. Her feet felt like lead and she could barely breathe, she was returning from her parents’ place, on her way back to her husband and kids, three wonderful sons, when she was told. Her middle one was no more. He had decided to call it a day, he gave up. He just left. He was all of fourteen.
To many of us, home is where the heart is, to many of us it’s just brick and mortar to others it’s a place, a person or few things that smell of home. But, to an increasingly large number of people who mingle with us every day, home is only inside their head. They are, for several reasons, unable to share, communicate or just plain and simply express. They may go through a gamut of emotions like the rest of us, anger, frustration, excitement and the like but somewhere deep inside they are alone. Alone, not because they do not want to merge, but perhaps because the world is cruel, judgmental and divisive; it forces them to the fringes every single moment of every single day. That in no way is a reason to quit, or give up on life, but it happens and is happening of late, a little too much a little too soon.
She alighted from the bus and waited by the roadside, turned to stone. She couldn’t weep, her heart felt as if had been ripped out of her body and what she heard beating outside was his. His innocent, his pained his wronged heart. Her mind tried to focus, her soulless body waited to be picked up by family.
The system is demanding, unapologetic and there is more negativity than positivity around, live and let live is an adage few identify with. Institutions are only concerned with commercials, statistics and percentages, winning by hook or crook and being flashed in the news for the most frivolous of reasons. There is a battle for the top slot at any cost. There is a dearth of people who can call a spade a spade and catch the bull by the horns. Parents, teachers everyone that can make a difference are in denial or are adding fuel to fire.
Systems that need to be in place with regards to mental and emotional health are missing, or are so archaic that one would rather do without them. There is little or no exposure to incidents or literature that talk of valour, of survival of respecting life and toiling on without comparisons or of being content.
Sometimes there are no answers, sometimes one closes ones eyes and wishes things away, but change is not about wishing away, it is about acceptance, it is about tolerance, it is about getting to the root of an issue, resolving it or alleviating the pain it may cause : it is about solutions & remedies.
The cold piercing reality began to slowly take shape in his mind, his blood froze as it sank in, his gut was dry, his eyes wouldn't stop pouring out a torrent of misery. He had worked night and day to give them a good life, of happiness & comfort.
He had tried he had done all he could to be a good father or had he, he thought as he was faced by a volley of stinging barbs that paralysed him, he ceased to think, in the aftermath he ceased to be. Questions hung unanswered limp from a night of tragedy.
As far as he knew they all were happy too. What made him take a drastic step he couldn't fathom, he went about the daily machinations wondering whether it was really the survival of the fittest?
But who could be called fit, was it the law of the jungle that prevailed.
In the limited understanding of life and death another innocent life was snuffed before it could bloom...
©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap
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