(Open) letter to my friend.

My Dear Friend,

I am writing this to you for absolutely no reason. I don’t know how this piece will unfold. But I do feel that there are times when it’s better to approach and speak out—no matter be it to the self, to a diary or to the people around. I generally have a bad habit of not expressing myself, my feelings; of not wishing good day, of not saying to take care… But today, I would love to begin with a confession that you are a champion…a genius who hits back at life with an intensity greater than what it throws at you.  Remember our first meeting, when we were introduced to each-other? We were just out of depressing lows in our lives and heading towards something which later turned out to be among the most enriching experiences. The times of rise are usually those when people start getting superiority complexes, but I found you astonishingly humble, grounded, polite; and better than me in many of the aspects. This helped me building a strong foundation to our friendship.

We went on to live our lives together, and apart, and with this came a realisation that it isn’t the perfection of people, but the realisation of our limitations, our lacunas and their acknowledgement that helps us build any relation. The bond of trust is made up of a very delicate thread and the way you keep mending our bond once a while gives it a revival every time.

You would remember an interaction of ours when you were upset over friends in an organisation cheating over each-others for professional advantages and had a thought that how could they do so. When I replied that every one has a cost, every relation has a price and when the advantage outweighs the bond of a relationship, nothing remains to pretend; you countered asking me if even I could do this for ₹20 crores offered to me. My response, in a lighter note was, ‘₹20 crores are too less, but I would consider if the amount is ₹200 crore.’

Its not about the zeroes, or a monetary consideration, but about human relations being fragile. They are so brittle that leave alone people to people relationships, there are times when even the self-inside us refuses to go with us; the times which people call by different names and extreme of which leads to extreme steps…and it is a point, when not our achievements, neither the accomplishments, nor the position counts…but it is only the inner strength that matters.

…and as I was continuing with this, I was stopped with a ping in my phone, the notification read about a Bangalore man leaving behind a 67 pages suicide note after killing his wife and mother in law. These times have really been tough and every beep in the phone leaves a fear of the uncertain, all this lockdown I have been getting those notification, of some random person somewhere for some reason taking their life. They came from all sorts of backgrounds, but more so from the accomplished ones on a higher stratum in the Maslow’s model over whom this society vouches upon; and parents tell their children to learn from. A film actress, a TV actor, a junior artist of a Bollywood chartbuster, an NCR business man who shot himself in his SUV with the bullet piercing through his body to his wife’s…and a lot of others before I stopped keeping a record of them. Most recent of those notifications were of a Bollywood actor’s manager followed by the actor himself.

I could have written this a week ago, but wanted my opinions not to be manipulated by the rush of adrenaline and so I have chosen a time when the emotions have settled down. The incident had response from all the corners ranging from those of the conspiracy theories, genuine concerns, flow of emotions and some of the kin and fans even taking the extreme steps. But at the end of everything, no one could deny the fact that it is the imbalance of life which leads to the extreme. We may say that suicide is not a trait of weak, but somewhere it remains, which stops us talking about them.

A day prior to Sushant Singh Rajput’s tragedy, I was talking in a webinar about working over multidimensional mental health issues that the pandemic has posed, and so I related his incident to the same. The questions that hit were mostly surrounding financial situations with unconnected answers before the larger facts started surfacing. The next couple of days saw people being caring and benevolent and laying it open to public across the social media  about their readiness to listen to people with mental and emotional issues—without being judgemental….and on the first day, when these messages were on peak, I missed two calls from you and several from one of our very beloved seniors; when I got to call him back, his words were,

‘Koi bhi suicide kar sakta hai na Abhishek!’ (Abhishek, anyone around can commit suicide?)

‘Haan koi bhi kar sakta hai…’ (Yes, anyone can, everyone can!)

‘Sushant Singh ka jab se sune hain tab se man baith gaya hai.’ (I’m restless after hearing about Sushant.)

Sushant was a very promising actor, with a familiar kind of smile and a bright future. In our lives, we tend to fake numerous smiles everyday, there are days when we even get tired doing them and that gets evident quite often. But Sushant’s smile never lost its gaze and this made out a reason for most of the people to associate with him. And the shock of his alleged suicide—of a person who posed so lively, of a person who had laid a message loud and clear in his movie just a few months ago—was tough to accept. How could someone believe if he got a call or a message, telling about Anni of Chhichhore committing suicide!

A fortnight ago, I and my younger brother went to see Doctor Sahab, as we were talking about the tough times medical professionals were facing, he quoted about several issues of doctors and then went on to say about his own problems and how disturbing it was keeping away from normal life. The uncertainty posed an uncertain fear and only a change in environment rescued him from slipping into depression.

It is not about who the person is, howsoever accomplished in their walk of life, financially sound or emotionally stable, there may still be reasons to feel upset about. Human problems in all the cases have a peculiarity in their nature. There can’t be laid a strict standard for them. Real life situations are neither right/wrongs, nor they are multiple choice questions. All our problems are different. In addition to it, we fear others being judgemental about our situations and opinions, as the society performs an inevitable function to judge. There isn’t anything wrong in that either, even the most rational looking people may pass judgements when in private… It is a human trait and should be accepted like that. Society has its limitations, people judge according to their experiences, understanding and culture. Every society has ‘a normal’ and those deviating from the normal are judged, a normal for one culture may not be okay for other, but it remains. Societies also have their own insecurities and concerns and this at times, helps to check any malafide defiance.

Blaming the society for the behaviours of an individual isn’t unwarranted, it affects them, but when we delve deeper towards the core of issue, it is our subconscious that lets them affect us. When we restrict our focus to ourselves, we truly find that Sigmund Freud wasn’t wrong in his psycoanalytical approach mentioning about the effect of our learnings, experiences, memories and insecurities as a child which shape our personality; relating our nature to our nurturing. All these are extremely socially inducted factors—but working within an individual.

At this point, I would not say about my ‘Nil’ theory being a perfect one, but for last five-six years (since the time I coined it) it has helped me maintain the balance in my life. Nil contemplates the life as a number line with zero as its centre; and placing all the accomplishments and failures around it to get a zero (nil). People like Sushant are extraordinarily meritorious, Gopal Mama was right when he told about him endeavouring what ordinary people can not dare to, leaving one field for a better one after accomplishing the previous like a gem of it. Only till the last choice he made, because there can be no justification to that! Why is that the ordinary people generally get across, and geniuses at times, do not! To me, it probably lies in the ‘balance’

There are people who related the mentality today with those of previous generations comparing the manifold increase in cases of suicide and psychological problems. The comparisons, though seem to be misplaced, no generation prior to this had seen so much artificial and mechanic interference in their lives. Social media has provided us with parallel lives, so much so that we are fragmented at individual and psychological levels with almost no balance between the id and superego. We think of snaps and Instagram moments even before the memories are actually created in real life. Every real-life happiness is a prospective social media story for us and we see them through the frame of a status update. The life around has become very hollow, made up and the glow of something which we don’t know, if actually exists, drives us.

This generation is facing issues of memory loss like never before and events in life have lost their warmth, they just exist as blacks and whites after a sometime pass by. But social media isn’t to be blamed either, the drive to live for the sake of it may be! My friend, I remember each occasion when you explained about an encounter with a person and our discussions about unnecessary minutes of them. I remember on occasions, when I felt that something unknown was driving me, you stood there, everytime when I felt like falling or feeling for some girl, you posed the mirror to me, to make a decision for me! You never imposed your opinions or decisions over me, but just helped me make a choice.

Very often you quote about us talking on different planes, that the issues we are speaking over simultaneously have no relations altogether but we still connect to them and understand them, I have concluded that it is so probably because we under the guise of communicating to each-others, manifest them to our inner selves, with the other acting just a facilitator; helping make this life a pleasant experience. You know, people are wrong when they relate life to battles. When they use analogies like ‘everyone is fighting their own battle’, they seem to find a justification for escape. Life is probably meant to be a beautiful journey, for some specific purpose, or for a wanderer’s experience.

Associating two unrelated concepts, we find: Santosh (Contentment) and Swadhyaya (Learning of self) are parts of second organ Niyama (Discipline) of Maharshi Patanjali’s Ashtangyoga. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy model is very popular among psychologists, it divides human needs into five basic categories ranging from basic survival needs to highest of intellectual needs. Attainment of each of these needs brings other into picture, say, after having built a house we think of getting some social or financial security. But say for another person, one house may not be enough. One can reach self-actualisation only after he is done with all the lower needs and those needs aren’t exhaustive unless a person feels satisfied. It is estimated that only 2% of the people succeed to reach the top of the pyramid.

Contentment is important not to go higher in life, but to get the balance right. Economic pursuits are limitless, so are others. This can’t be achieved without knowing ourselves, and so is Swadhyaya, learning the self to find the ultimate peace and pursuit. Else all the accomplishments may seem to be false and the person may feel himself to be an impostor. The self-evaluation though helps us to work upon ourselves and it becomes significant because at times, we may hardly have anyone to go in situations of extreme distress; or who knows, the go to person themselves may, at times, be the reason for the distress. We need to believe in ourselves like the lessons of Vedic mantras of ‘Ahambrahmasmi’ and ‘Tattamasi’.

Five year down the line, we would realise that all that we sought for or found important was not that important. That there were other things, that there were reasons, which were important for us to continue. It is the beauty of memories that howsoever bad they be, they bring just the smile and nostalgia, so will those moments of distress… Any drive for extreme is instantaneous. But they serve as a motivation when we survive and defeat them.

Life compels us to maintain multiple personalities, from my experience of unprofessionally being into counselling psychology all these years, I have learnt that there are occasions when people bring negativities as well. But it is important to stay with them. You never know how many of them you inspire unintentionally, about most of which you will actually never know!

Remember that intrinsic motivation is most powerful among all, no one can motivate you better than you can. You only need to channelize your energy. Your people, your family can be a great support system. Try investing in them! It really touched me when you told me to keep calling you just for the sake of it, but there may be times when I may not be able to stand to my promise. These investments may work for you in those moments. Remember you are important like anything and so important is it to stay!

Yours’

Abhishek