05

2:33 a.m.

realization. and a long one.

sometimes, really terrible things happen to people who don't deserve them one tiny bit. not me this time around not mine. but someone i know. and the story stings. more than it perhaps would have if i had been in the same situation.

i know its pretty easy to say "get the pieces back together... your life doesn't end here.." but its a lame thing to say. to some1 who faces loss. a loss of words, a loss of actions, a loss so great that nothing else compares to it.

i think about those imbeciles who sit around and rant about love affairs turning sour, jobs not paying enough, jobs not giving "satisfaction", parents bickering, classmates backstabbing, colleagues stealing ideas, etc etc cte. blah blah blah. i have. and surprise! surprise!! so have you!!

look on the bright side, you idiots are not 18 and your life really hasn't come to a point which could make you want to kill yourself. not out of emo fascination or attention demanding tactics. but simply because there is no other option. there is no more light and the ending that has arrived, is definitely a sad one.

he called me tonight. (lets not take names). and he cried over the phone. 4 years older to him, i have seen him grow, seen his curls transform to spikes and the rest of the paraphernalia that is synonymous to change.
fatherless.
mother is on the verge of retiring.
other living relatives? none.
debts incurred to pay the loan that was taken for his late father's cancer treatment five odd years ago? remain largely unpaid.
board results? highly unsatisfactory
chances of getting a governtment grant or the like to go to college? none.
recent family development? mother coughing up blood for the past week or so.

and thats just the bit, i was told, through the years of knowing each other and friendship.

in calcutta, walls have ears and some ears, lead to tongues... and tongues tend to wag. so stories never stop sprouting. family secrets are spilled and people tend to know more than what they are told...

so when such a young boy, whom i love perhaps more than i love my own cousins, calls me up, in the dead of the night and asks me what to do cuz he cant think of any path that goes too far ahead into the future and how he can't deal with the stress,pain,confusion,humiliation,lonliness, failure, and a life without hope anymore, and that he wants to live cuz he is just 18 and someday wants to become a director and he doesnt know what to do to simply "live on". but he wants to and yet he tells me there is hope... "it lies beyond the god awful wall that is the dead end. i don't know how to get past it and i don't want it falling on me... what do i do?" and he asks me for advice... i really don't know what to do.

so what am i supposed to tell him?

"oh i broke up with my boyfriend due to family issues and still can't get over it. its ok. i have survived. so will you."

or

"you have no idea how unsatisfactory my job is. 9-5 and i feel like killing every1 in office. no1 bothers to realize my true potential"

or

"so that bitch stole my term paper! she didnt steal it as such.... but you know, i trusted her with the idea and the next thing i know is that her termpaper topic is the same as mine and she gets more"

or

"my job pays me peanuts. i work my ass off. i work harder than my boss, and he is the one who gets all the promotions and dough. how unfair is that?"

or

"awww... sweetie, its ok. every1 has setbacks. i have had mine too, no1 likes me, they hate me and so i ran from here. come away with me. i feel so lonely there now as well... people hate me so much. things cant b worse than what i am going through"

or

i dont know what.

i am running out of excuses, reasons, whines and nags anyway. so what was i supposed to tell him?

i guess, he somehow, made me realize, a lot of things that i could not have realized otherwise... and suddenly, i do indeed seem to have a life that is not even close to being lonely, frustrating, helpless, hopeless...

and i bet, most of you are on the same boat i am. and sadly for all those who think the leak was tremendous, its not. its just some water that fell out of your bottle on the floor.

and if you seriously think, you actually are in the dumps and beyond redemption, i dare you to look into the eyes of one such 18 yr old. and tell him how much your life sucks. and how you really can't make it any better.or live with it. i dare you.

i cried tonight. after long. for someone... who doesnt conform to theatre screens, stages or pages of books. i didnt know what else to do. i know he did not call me to hear about legalities of taking loans and i know he didnt call me to borrow a few lakhs that will see him through college or pay for his mother's long term medication.

when a friend calls you up and begs you for something, even something like an answer to a question for you are what apparently seems to be the last resort and you have no answer for it or even a millionth of a solution, the sense of dread that creeps into your system is something that cannot be described very well in just words.

i am not some1 who has prided herself to come up with the most brilliant solutions during crises... but how many 20 something year olds can actually answer his question?

i am not some1 who sermonizes or judges or bothers drilling sense into every1's heads. im not your keeper. and i am happy that way. period. but at some point of time. when i realize that such a lot around me is so much worse than i can ever get, i just feel incredibly sad to realize that i know people who are still stuck in the same rut. the same drill. the same soap opera. like me.

doesnt make sense for you to read this post and raise eyebrows, criticize pointlessly and in silly bouts of self defence and also indulge in bouts of washing my dirty linen in public. wont really do any1 any good. not me. not you. not most of our lives that hopefully exist beyond a computer screen.

life doesn't end, it goes on... and on and on. and its up to us to live and not complain.
look around... there are people, you know, who are in bigger dumps than you are.

there are like a million and one things i could list here and talk about and keep typing in frenzy and then proceed to write the next topselling self-help book. but really, use your brains. spare me the trouble.

and do whatever. whatever helps you sleep at night is always a good thing to do. and live. live like there is no tomorrow and live like there is no better today. shit happens. clean it up and walk past it. if it stinks, know the fact that it has hit some1 in the face. while you just slipped on it.