After fifteen minutes of “oh, fuck!” wait, I finally halted a rickshaw which had its “For hire” up and jumped inside, “Chembur.”
“Arre… Chembur?”
Before he could say he would not want to go, I almost shouted, “Yes! And don’t say you too won’t go ‘coz your meter was up. And I am already late, thanks to many of your friends. I have to reach there in another 30 minutes so…” I just trailed off as he had pulled the rickshaw forward, half heartedly though. But it didn’t matter to me. I was fumed, first by the extreme heat Bombay is already facing in March (God! What’s gonna happen in May!!!) and then numerous refusals from Rickshaw-wallahs before this guy. So to cool myself a little, I just plugged in my earphones.
We had hardly gone a few meters ahead that we faced a traffic jam. The F-word reappeared in my mind but I just held it back before it could have got itself pronounced as I realized the driver was saying something. I pulled off the earphone from my right ear and asked, “What?”
He was saying something in Marathi, but my questioning in Hindi probably compelled him to translate it in Hindi, “Nothing Bhai. These traffic jams I say. See, in this afternoon also!!” He looked up at me from the rear view mirror.
“Yeah,” I said just to acknowledge the discussion but in a toneless manner to avoid any further chitchat. But it appeared as if he had forgotten my rash behavior exhibited few minutes back. So he continued, “I tell you bhai, half of these people don’t know how to drive. And more so if a Ladies is driving. “See. Why did she have to pull her car in the wrong direction?” he hinted to a lady driver to prove his point.
I nodded and realizing that now this was gonna go on forever till I reach Chembur, I plugged my phone in again but with reduced volume so that I could also hear what this fellow was yapping on. I didn’t want him to feel bad. After all he was the guy who saved me from the roadside frustration.
As soon as we reached Amar Mahal, he said, “Bhai, these people have dug up entire Mumbai. They will make something one year and will break and redo it the next year. It seems they are never satisfied with what they make… You see, they are now making a monorail here. God knows, from where to where will they connect…. I tell you bhai, Mumbai city has something about it…. Anyone who comes here never leaves… It’s not like bhai that they want to... but it’s like they just can’t… there’s something I tell you.”
By now I was all cool and didn’t mind his disconnected viewpoints. I asked him, “Where are you from?”
“Bhai, I am from here only.”
“Here means?”
“Sangali, bhai. In Maharshtra Only.”
“Yeah, I know.” I felt certain discomfort. Probably because I wasn’t expecting him to be from where he was.
“Where are you from, bhai?” My discomfort heightened a bit.
“Well I live here only, in Chembur.”
“No no. I mean where your village is?”
“Well I am from here only,” I looked away. I had lied. And probably he had guessed.
“No no, bhai I mean your parents, where are they from. ‘Coz you see, in Mumbai, everyone comes from somewhere at some point of time.”
“Well yeah, my parents… they are from U.P.”
He smiled in the rearview mirror. I am not sure what did he smiled at. Of an answer he was a little too sure ‘coz I didn’t speak Marathi to him? Of my being so stupid to try faking my place of origin? Of realizing that despite he was serving me, he had sensed a feeling of fear in me, and that gave a sense of pride to him? I don’t know. May be it was just a reasonless response. I don’t know. But I hated his smile in that moment. I looked away. And before he could initiate any further discussion, I took out my phone and dialed a random friend to have a very random discussion. I just ensured I did that in English, as most of the upper class Bombayites do, and it did continue till I reach my destination.
When I walked off the Rickshaw I felt weak and sad.
“Why? Why did I have to do it? Did I feel guilty of belonging to UP?
I tried answering my own questions in a reflection later. Where do I belong to? I don’t belong here, because I am not born here, even though I have kinda spoiled my Hindi, which is so Bombay-ized now that my parents sadly point it out when I talk to them. But I don’t even belong to my place of birth any more, because I don’t speak their language the same way as they do. I feel same alienation there, which at times I feel here, in such situations. Neither do I belong to any of the cities I have spent considerable time of my life throughout my education career. This un-belonged existence at times creates chaos within. And a mind smoked out with such chaos may force you toward deceit, big or small. But then I need to clear this chaos, ones and for all. I need to know… I need to know which place I belong to so that tomorrow I don’t feel awkward in such situations.
But then how do I define my place of belonging? On the merit of it being the place where my mom chose to give birth to me? Or my dad chose me to school at? Or the place I chose to study and work? All these places I have lived have contributed to my being, but do I belong to any of them? In this bedazzlement I realize, we don’t belong to places. Rather, they belong to us.
The concept of belonging would have been more appropriate in times when people spent their entire existence in just one place. Not any more. Today, we don’t travel around; we live around. The places we live around are defined by the way we live there; and not vice versa.
I cannot belong to here, or for that matter, anywhere in the world. The only thing that will belong to this place is my minuscule and unnoticeable contribution in characterizing this city, as what it will be known in days and years to come. I may not live here, tomorrow. But this city will live within me in the form of certain formations and reformations I have underwent in all these years I have spent here. And the only belongings with me from this city and all the cities I will have lived in will be… memories.
To read other posts from The City of Hills and the Sea, click below:
How well do we understand a system that we have been part of, for a good part of our life? And if asked, what is the purpose of this system, how many of us would be able to confidently answer?
Unfortunately many of us would not be able to answer in affirmative. And no one is to blame. It’s the way we have been conditioned in those 15+years. A conditioning that has gone deep into our DNA and have become our thought process. And with such conditioning, if someone says that purpose of education is to become competitive or attain fame, one must not be shocked.
At the outset, let it be known that Education is not same as literacy. It is also not about schooling. Our current education system has been beautifully analogized by Sir Ken Robinson, educationist, in one of his speeches. He says, “We have to go from what is today an industrial model of education, which is based on linearity and conformity... We have to move to model which is based on the principles of agriculture. We have to recognize, that human flourishing is not a mechanical process... it is an organic process. You can not predict the outcome of human development... all you can do is, like a farmer, create the conditions on which they will flourish.”
Elaborating this thought further, we do not expect a tomato seed to become an onion plant; neither have we expected a sugarcane farm to provide us with rice. Rather we provide them with adequate conditions to grow and become what they are. Then why do we become so harsh with our own children that we ignore who they are and start expecting from them to become what we would want them to be? Ponder over.
Human beings are characterized by one or few basic talents, which we can call the core. Rest all is auxiliary. If we focus on the development of the core of a child, we automatically meet up with the auxiliaries, as they are nothing but just a by-product of the successful implementation of the core talent. And that’s what the real purpose of education is – to assist in identification and further develop the natural talent of a child, thus, leading to the enablement of his/her rational, logical and emotional quotient. Education should be such that it enables a child to be able to express his/her idea and apply his/her knowledge. Rest would all be a byproduct of this process; be it the profession a child would choose or the success that shall follow.
So if this makes sense, from where do we begin? Though the idea is cool, achieving it would be a gigantic task, especially when looked from outside the system. So first step would be to enter the system without a boxed mindset, ready to explore and innovate. As Sir Robinson rightly says, “It doesn’t need evolution. It needs revolution.”
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References:
http://sirkenrobinson.com,
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
Note: This story contains some adult (A) content. Please read further only if you are eligible. Thank you.
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She held his hands out just before he was about to move it inside her panties. She knew where he was leading to… she had known it from all the previous encounters, not with him but many men she had been with. And to all those men she did exactly the same. When they were ready… almost ready to get in, she would hold them on. Just there. And would run out of bed, at times apologizing and other times just lost; leaving all those men either amused or angry and bewildered. Tonight she did that again. She had just ran out of Rajesh’ bed and was dressing herself up when he asked, “What’s this? And why?”
“No reasons. I need to go home. Urgently…”
“But why? You said you will be staying here tonight!”
“Yes... I know I said that. But I also know that I need to go from here... right now.”
“But its 11:30 in night and it’s pretty late for you to leave... and I’m not letting you go anywhere. If you are scared...”
She cut him down, “I am not scared, for god’s sake! I just want to go home.”
“This is crazy! If you want me not to touch you, that fine. You can sleep in the other room. I won’t do anything… I really...”
“I am ready,” she just had buttoned her shirt, “you mind opening the door for me?”
“But it’s too late! It’s so damn late!!! You won’t get any transport!!”
“I can hear rickshaws outside… I guess that won’t be a problem,” she looked at him, “please.”
“But why? What happened? I don’t understand this.”
“You don’t have to understand anything, Rajesh. Just let me go, please.”
She ran out of his room, towards the main door. He came running after her, “please!! It’s pretty late. It’s not safe!”
“If you keep me engaged in further conversation, it’s gonna be further late,” she looked stone-faced at him, “open the door, please.”
“I am not letting you go anywhere, at this hour. You sleep in the other room. And you can go in the morning at whatever time you want.”
“That’s not happening Rajesh. I have to go now. I NEED to go now…,” she paused, “I WILL go now, Rajesh. Please open the door.”
“All right!” he gave up, went back to his room, put his pants on and got the keys. Down the stairs, he started his bike.
“You don’t have to drop me anywhere, Rajesh. I will get a rickshaw.”
He had already started the engine. “Sit on.”
She quietly sat on the back seat. When he moved the vehicle on she said, “I am sorry if it hurts you... In fact I know it does hurt you. And I am really sorry.” He didn’t respond. He drove her to her home. When she got off the bike, she only said, “Thank you. And sorry.” Before he could respond, she had already moved into her building.
When he reached home, he texted her, “tis’ crazy. If thr ws smthng wrong, u cd have told me. Bt tis is damn crazy!”
She clicked on the reply button, then waited for a moment to pass, and typed in, “Sry. U’r a sweet guy. Gn.”
“What is it?” she thought, “Why do I do it - with all those men lying next to me in their bed; naked and high on their testosterones… and most of them pretty sweet to me? What is it?”
***
Next morning Nalini was sitting a psychologist’s clinic. The nameplate read – Dr. Mitali Thakkar.
“I need answers. Answers to my own behavior. Because I don’t do it to them by choice. I mean though I do it by choice in that moment, I really don’t know if I want it that way in the entirety of the situation,” she paused and looked up at the doctor, “I am not sure if you are capable of providing me with it. But I want you to try. I want to try.”
“All right. Go on.”
Then she narrated some of her experiences, some in their exactness, some roughly because she would not remember them in precision.
“What do you think when you take that decision?”
“Decision of what?”
“Of running out of someone’s bed.”
“I don’t think of anything. It just happens.”
“Okay. Tell me something about your past.”
“What about my past?”
“Something… anything… like where have you lived… who all you had in your family… what were your relationships like…”
“I don’t find it relevant.”
“Leave it for me to decide, please?”
Nalini suddenly got up, “I don’t think it will help. How much and where am I suppose to pay?”
“You need help Nalini. And we can solve it together for you.”
“Where should I pay?”
Mitali looked up and sighed, “You may please meet the receptionist.”
“Thank you.”
In the train back home, Nalini tried to recall the child’s face from that night. But she couldn’t. She could only visualize the dark room and a girl, all of nine, sitting on her bed, sobbing badly but silently, in an effortful manner. She could just imagine how her face would have looked. Our memories contain mostly the actions we take in response to the situations we are thrown up in. Our own expressions are just felt and not seen as we don’t live in front of mirrors all the time.
When she reached home, she unlocked the door, went straight to her bed, covered her face in the pillow and wept. It was almost midnight when she woke up. While she was walking to the washroom, that night flashed up again.
She had just woken up in midnight to go to washroom. She had heard a moan from her sister’s room. She softly walked to her room and from the keyhole she saw her, caught under her brother-in-law, naked and in pain. When he forced himself inside her she exhaled loudly. To Nalini it appeared as a painful cry. She had run back to her room, petrified and indecisive. She had spent that night sitting stiffly in her room. Next morning she was told that Shalini had killed herself. But she knew it wasn’t a suicide but a murder.
***
Next day she was sitting in the Dr. Mitali’s clinic again.
“Are you scared Nalini?” asked Mitali once she was narrated with the account of Nalini’s childhood experience.
“Scared of what?”
“Of being fucked?”
“I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t kill, Nalini. It didn’t kill your sister for sure. If that’s what is bothering you, you need to know what exactly killed her. Find out what killed her. But don’t kill your existence with your assumptions… your assumed experience. We need corrections in our experiences, all the time, Nalini. Our past should never decide who we are going to be in future. It’s our present that should play this role. Correct it now.”
Sometimes we are so badly trapped in our past that we don’t realize it’s not our behavior but just a response to an event from the past that we are living with. Many times such a response or a series of responses gives an impression of our personality. However we actually don’t be that person. This leads to a dichotomous life. And to move out from this dichotomy, we need to go back to the same past... to break free from that moment … in order to live a life as our real personality would define and not the responses from the past.
While leaving from the clinic, Nalini remembered only one thing from the discussion, “Find out what killed her.”
It’s one thing to know what is right. And quite another to do the right thing, more so in its exactness. What if he actually killed her? What if he killed her and still lies to me? And what if he really didn’t kill her?
How does one suddenly negate something that was believed to be true for so many years? How does one forget and forgive so easily when all these years were filled with extreme hatred? If we realize it’s our mistake, at times, it’s still easy to forgive the second person, but not so easy to forgive ourselves for the grudge we hold falsely against that person. Sometimes we are not so much concerned about letting go our ego or shredding off our beliefs as we are about the way we would behave when done in presence of someone else. And it’s a huge decision to make when you have to choose between the past on which you base your existence and the future you wish to have for yourself. But at the end of the day we always realize that hatred for whatever reason is not as much a punishment for the offender as it is for the imposer.
***
When she rang the doorbell, a lady in her forties opened the door, “Does Mr. Sandeep Goel lives here?”
“Yes, he does. May I know who are you please?”
“I am Nalini. Nalini Mehrotra,” she hesitated in elaborating her introduction but then looking at the lady’s puzzled face, she said, “I am Shalini’s… Mr. Goel’s ex wife’s… sister.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the lady, “please come in.” She went inside the bedroom. After sometime, Sandeep came out. When they looked at each other, there wasn’t a sense of recognition. It was like they were meeting as strangers.
Post lunch Sandeep suggested to go for a walk. He asked Nalini to come along. Once on the road, she asked, “Why? And how?”
“I know you always believed that I killed her. But that’s not true,” he paused, “not entirely… and not technically, for sure.”
“What had happened that night?”
“Your sister was always very possessive about me... about everything. And this behavior of hers had started straining our relationship. But since I knew she was madly in love with me and so was I with her, we would always make up. However our fights kept on increasing. And to avoid them I started spending more time in office where I met Nisha. She would listen to my problems and slowly we grew into friends. That night when we were making love my phone beeped for a message. I ignored. But Shalini couldn’t. This I learnt later when Nisha informed me the next day that she had received a message from my cell saying, ‘Bitch. So that’s you. You wanna have him? Have him forever.’ The next morning we found Shalini dead in the bathroom. She didn’t give me even a chance to explain. I was…”
Nalini was lost. She didn’t care to listen beyond this. For her the story was over. She got up and started walking. Sandeep walked fast to catch up with her. Once close enough, he said, “I loved her too, Nalini.”
Nalini turned back, looked at him for a moment and said, “I am sure you did.” She will-ed out a smile for him, a smile that said, “I don’t hate you… not anymore. I forgive you… to forgive myself,” and turned back. She walked few steps forward, turned again and said, “I am sorry.” When she walked on, she felt clean.
“What would have been a better way to die? With… or without that kiss?” He thought and smiled. He knew his answer. He looked at the smuggled blade and a packet of rat poison that he had received in exchange of some loose cash from the night security guard. He thought of that evening.
***
He walked in his empty room, with a heart full of shit. Standing few steps in, he looked around. Everything appeared to be in big mess. Some used plates were lying on the couch which was just about to break. The bed was undone as if someone had just left after a wild sexual encounter. Some books and CDs were thrown on the floor by the side of an open laptop. A half-filled beer bottle was kept on the other side of the bed along with a used glass.
He took a deep breath and jumped onto the bed and turned to the window. It was a full-moon night and the moon was hanging bright in the sky between the high-rise buildings on the other side of the road. His face bore no expression, only a hint of a smile that was not sure of its existence and so was not able to exhibit itself completely.
He said, “At 29, suicide is not a great idea. But is definitely one of those ideas that linger around in my mind. No.. no.. Its not like as if I am frustrated of life or something. It’s just that… life is cool, but there’s something is missing… I don’t know what it is… but I can feel it.”
“The purpose, you mean?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He was responded with an ‘A ha’.
He continued, “At 29, I don’t know where this life is headed towards. I don’t know if the past years were worth the expense they incurred, whether they made sense to me or to anybody in this world. I don’t know whether I am lost or confused… or just going through that phase, called ‘Quarter Life Crisis’. You know how it is. Your family says you are grown up, so you may have to chuck those things which you have been enjoying till now. You are made aware of responsibilities, of which you just had a hint till now. Your buddies, whom you took for granted, are getting married and owning up to those same responsibilities, which you are reluctant to own up to, and they tell you, “Dude, everyone has to grow up and be responsible towards life at some point of time.” And this they say with a nice, big smile on their face. You feel as if you are the most irresponsible person around. You are shocked because these are the same people, with whom you had dreamt a really carefree and INDEPENDENT way of life.
“Independence. It’s a nice word. Someone has said, ‘You are born free, but everywhere you are in chains.’ It appears true now. If am at work, I am told - you are free to do it your way, just ensure that it falls within company policies, doesn’t shock people (most of them don’t appreciate the shock they receive from the originality of an idea) and is liked by your boss. I feel like saying, ‘Fuck you and the freedom you offer!’
“With family, am constantly being reminded, ‘You are no more a kid. You need to take care of your aging parents. Also, you have to be a little responsible to your siblings and their families, and families of their families and so on. You need to learn to be a little social. We don’t mean to debar you from your independence but you will be married soon, so start being a little social.’ And by being ‘being social’ they mean, I should start attending marriage of my cousins where I just don’t find a connect, being in family prayer ceremonies where I just can’t relate with god, initiate and hold a conversation to relatives I just don’t relate with, and so on. Here again, I feel like shouting, ‘Get lost! Let me be alone!’
“And then, your own personal life. You have a girl who will calls you or messages you not for the reason that she wanted to do just that but she wanted to get a response in return. She will make a call and will have nothing to talk about, except a pile of expectations from you to keep talking, even if you are coming back from a hectic day. And if you don’t she will ensure to screw up your evening or night, whatever the time be, by numerous such things as – You don’t care for me, you don’t really love me, you don’t do this and you don’t do that, blah, blah, blah blah! (In some cases, it’s just opposite where some guys do that to their gals). Well, this is still better than not having a girl at all for some because in that case, people around will ensure you are either tagged to be impotent or a gay. But fuck those people; I broke up with my gal last week.”
He looked up at the fan. He was smiling, but smile itself couldn’t feel its existence on his face.
“And with all that, you have your dreams; dreams of doing something big, something grand in life. And you feel and you see that big, grand dream just resting mere as a dream, going nowhere from nowhere. Every morning, you wake up with this thought, today is the day. And every night you sleep with the thought, tomorrow I will fix everything. And with each day passing, everything remains unfixed.”
“So with this unfixed life, I check out for options,” he stretched his hands on both sides, “And that’s where this option of terminating it here, with some unfulfilled dreams, but my independence still in my control, appears in my mind. As a child, I always thought suicide is a coward’s behavior. But today, I have a different opinion. It’s not like that. Sometimes, you don’t have to be frustrated or exhausted with life to end it. At times the pointlessness of its existence is enough. And you know what, with this reason, you don’t really feel sad when you decide to end it. In fact, feelings seize to exist. And in such situation, what can be better than being responsible to your own life and its termination?”
After this long speech, he was still responded with an ‘A ha’.
He smiled and told his mind, “If you have nothing better to offer, you have the option of keeping your trap shut rather than irritating me with your ‘A ha’s’.”
He walked into the kitchen and looked around. There was a knife on the self and rat’s poison in the drawer below. “The knife or the rat’s poison,” he laughed aloud, “If I choose any one today that will be my last INDEPENDENT choice!”
But he didn’t choose any. He walked out of the kitchen, put on a pair of jeans, a loose T-Shirt and a pair of floaters and walked out of the room. He avoided the lift as it would have posed a chance for him to face some other human beings that he happily wanted to avoid. So he walked down the stairs. Out of his building was a smaller garden in the compound. Families from the buildings would come post dinner would come down, all with different intentions – some for quite walks, some to hang around and yet some others to do their last minute gossips before they would go to bed.
“Why did I come out of kitchen? What was it that held me back? When does life exactly become pointless?” He asked his mind, who then answered, “Everything else, I guess, can be redone, recreated. But when the ability to love dries dead, that’s when the life exactly becomes pointless. Mind it, I mean ‘dead’ and not ‘temporarily ill’.”
“Hmmm…” he gasped and walked up to a bench to sit for some time, quietly. He was a good observer; he could observe people’s behavior for hours. He moved from person to person, from expression to expression, some expressed ones some in an attempt to be hidden. He then stopped at a face. The only thing he had noticed was her smile and next thing realized was him standing in front of her.
“I want to kiss your smile.” He pronounced with authority, standing tall in front of her.
She looked up. The smiled started diminishing.
“No… no… don’t kill that smile. That makes you the most beautiful girl I have ever seen…,” before he could finish, she busted into a grand laughter. When the sound of the laughter fizzled into the evening air, she let the smile remain on her face and asked him, “What?”
He repeated himself, “I want to kiss your smile.”
“Here, in this garden, with so many people around?”
“I don’t care.”
Keeping her smile intact, she moved her upper body back, and rested her palms on the ground to support it. She lifted her face up towards the sky, with her eyes closed, and said, “Then go ahead.”
He was about to reach for her lips that she asked, “What if in middle of the kiss I decide to wade off the smile?”
“You will not do that.”
Her smile broadened.
He carefully placed his thick lips on her soft ones… deep… intense… and lost; lost enough to realize that people had already started crowding around them. Children were grinning, young adults were whistling and old people were just shocked. Well, it was not just a guy and girl kissing in middle of a garden; it was a twenty nine years’ old man kissing a girl, a little older than half his age.
The girl pushed the man gently when she heard a harsh voice running towards her. It was her mother who was informed by her neighbor that her daughter was doing this shit in the garden, that too openly. The mother started shouting and crying and gesturing. By now, most of the adults gathered around them. The mother pronounced, “Oh my god, now little children can’t play in a garden. These rapists will not leave any place for us, the civilized people,” and she went on crying. The father and the brother came running; they looked at the mother, then at the girl, the man and the crowd. Then they looked at each other and started beating the man. Other males in the crowd joined.
During all this, one responsible citizen called up the police. He got arrested. In the entire trial he didn’t speak anything. He was charged with an attempt to rape and was pronounced with an imprisonment of 8 years.
***
In last three years and some months, the thought of suicide had never appeared in his mind. He was simply amused by the way jails functioned. He experienced a strange sense of freedom when he was jailed, inside a small dirty room with some bizarre co-existers. Last week was the first time, when in all these years, someone had come to see him.
“It took me two years to become legally adult and another one year and few months to trace you,” she told him.
“First part is okay; you couldn’t help but grow up. Second part was not required.”
“I am sorry.”
“This whole part is not required.”
“I will reopen the case and will set you free.”
“Please don’t do that. I am happy here. They give us free food.”
“But…”
“Please…”
They didn’t say a word after that; just looked at each other for some time, without expressions, without any emotion.
“Can you recreate the magic of that smile?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. But I can try.”
“Please don’t. Such things are not created by hit-and-trial. They just appear, at times not to appear again.” After a pause, he said, “you should leave.”
“Okay.”
She had turned and started to move away that something stuck in her mind and she asked, “Do you mind if I come to see you again next week, same day?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay,” she said, turned and walked out of the corridor.
A week had passed, if she would decide, he had to meet her tomorrow. He looked at the blade and the rat poison box again.
He told himself, “That was the last thing I had fallen in love with. It’s no more. She can’t smile that way again. I don’t really care what kinda person she is. I was never in love with her. I loved just that – A face full of smile. That’s gone. And with it went out, my ability to love.” He was sitting on the floor. All other co-existers were sleeping.
“There’s a fine difference between ‘Not able to love’ and ‘not want to love’. The ability to do something can only be known when it is experienced. And you can experience something only if you want to experience it. So my ability to love depends on my desire to love. But to choose not to desire is a way of cowardice or completion, who can know? I guess it’s an individual’s prerogative.” He tried to stretch his legs, but in that attempt he touched upon someone’s head. With a sudden reflex, he pulled his legs back up. He smiled, “Her smile was the last thing with which I fell in love. In these three years, I wasn’t sure if I will ever get to see that. I didn’t know it existed or died. I didn’t think on these lines. And I never fell in love with anything else. But today when I know that it’s gone, I feel as if my memories of that smile are murdered. When I think of it, I see ghosts of the dead smile. And I don’t want to live with ghosts. So I have two options; either I choose to love something new, move on in life with this thing called hope to find new love or I end this quest permanently. I choose the later.” He looked at the blade and the rat poison. He picked both up and cautiously moved to the toilet. After locking the door from inside, he announced to himself, “My last INDEPENDENT Choice!”
Next morning he was found dead in the filthy, red toilet. In a corner, a blooded blade and an empty rat poison bottle was found.
