Suicide

Suicide.

A lot of you are going to hate me for what I am going to say next and those of you who know me well enough will also know that it is not going to stop me from saying it.

This capitalist world is anything but a numbers game. It likes to present numbers and capitalize on every situation to its benefit. No matter how horrible and obscene those numbers are. Since it is accustomed to numbers, let's talk of publicly available suicide numbers and facts. (Specific to India)

Suicide is the most common cause of death in the age group of 15-39 years. Also (15-29 years)

About 800000 people die every year because of suicide worldwide. 17% of them are Indians.

Did it ever cross your mind that we must be doing something wrong as a society? As individuals? 

Do you think we have a role to play?

Causes: Among the causes of suicide family issues are the top cause for suicides.

Literacy: (and some sections of the society must read this with caution.) 80% of people who commit suicide are literate.

Gender: On average Male suicide ratio is twice that of females. (Ladies please don't compete with men in this race)

Now let's come back from numbers to what I want to say. You know from the numbers now that we are in big trouble. Are we doing something about this? Do we understand the impact this has on the world? Before we come to what leads to suicides I want you to revisit what you have all heard or said after you hear "THAT SOMEONE COMMITED SUICIDE".

1. It is a cowardly act to commit suicide.

2. What the dear ones must be going through because of this step?

3. We are heartbroken and it pains us so much that someone we knew and loved has left this world.

These are just a few to mention. What we do is play the victim card. We don't address the real victim of the situation. We speak of our pain, losses and turmoil blaming the person who committed suicide. Every time someone is forced to end their life, I am sure is in much more pain than that. I am not glorifying suicides. I am not saying that it's the best escape. I just want to say that we cannot shut our eyes and be lame in our reasons to declare suicide as a cowardly act. It is simply unfair and lacks a lot of perspectives. We are not being just when we put every single suicide on the same scale. We can't declare it all an easy escape.

We need to clean out lenses and if required change a few of them. We need to think of it as a problem; the scale of which is huge. The intention of this post is not to change you the minute you read this. I want you to think.

We lost around 4,23,000 people to coronavirus till now in 2020 and the world is busy looking for vaccines and other solutions

We lose 800000 people every year to suicides and just ignore it.

We lose one young soldier to a war, to an act of terror and the nation starts to mourn.

Every year we lose thousands of young people who are so deeply terrorized by life that they end it.

The world has even started to address problems that may arise in the future but still stays silent on such a huge problem throughout. Suicide has been a problem in the past, it is a problem right now and if we continue our approach without making needful changes sadly it will continue to be one in the future.

I don't blame anyone for this. It's a collective failure and the responsibility to make things better also needs to be collective.  Blaming governments, politicians, leaders and other celebrities is not the solution. We need people to support each other. We need to make small differences as individuals to make a huge difference as a society.

I want to brave it all today and say that every time someone is pushed to an extent where the person is okay giving up on life rather than living it. We fail. We as a society fail.

And we fail way too many times every single day.

You could have your disagreements with me and I am fine with that but I am sure within myself that declaring suicide as a cowardly act is not the solution this world is looking for. We cannot solve any problems without addressing them. There is a lot more that needs to be addressed but let us start with this.

The more we delay,

The more we lose.

We better act before all of it is lost. 

To a different morning, a different sky and to the beautiful city of PUNE.

#COVD-19 effect.

The roads are lighted as usual

But empty that's unusual.

The signal is working as it always does.

But today there is no one to rush.

No pedestrians, no motorcycles, no hawkers, no newspaper vendors, neither do I see the milk vendors nor do I see the crowded tea stalls.

These were the shops that always had shutters up at 4:00 am

Today, it's already past 6:00 am but shutters are down and no one is coming to get them up.

Out in this corner, there is usually a man and he has a habit of showing up before the sun does.

He starts selling hot breakfast food when the sky is still painted black and while he feeds customers and earns his food. 

He becomes a witness to the colour-changing sky.

From black to orange to blue. 

Till he says goodbye.

But today the sky has already turned blue and his Cart is still empty and lifeless.

Usually, there are a few joggers, You know those health-conscious folks. I maintain a safe distance from them :-)

Because there is always a piece of advice from the observant corner of their eye.

Unusually these disciplined folks are also absent.

And as if the city was ghosted no lights loom on the windows of houses that would usually be preparing for the day, like a war was about to begin.

Not that I am complaining.

For today this silence so persistently spread everywhere is an eminent, loud and resounding war cry.

The war cry of a city that is full of warriors.

It is an announcement of how understanding my city is.

It is an announcement of how mature its people are.

I request everyone to care for themselves and for everyone else.

Please stay back at home

#this_weekend.

So that we could together celebrate our victory against #COVD-19 in the weeks that follow.

Yours truly:

Abhay singh.

Grammar Nazi's

Consider this as an open letter to all those Grammar Nazis out there.

You people are great.

I seriously commend your ability to spot errors.

You surely make a wonderful Monitoring and continuous improvement team. 

But hang on for a moment, I must save some praises for the end.

A sweet dessert always helps after some hot chilly and tongue-enthralling spices. Let us start then.

What I want to say is are we already a generation that ridicules emotions just because something is not written in a way that is correct according to the reference books.

Can't we leave it to the formal desks where it matters the most?

Aren't we already facing a communication breakdown in this huge interconnected world?

Isn't it completely and blatantly unfair of us to stop someone from saying something only because they don't say it the way we were theoretically taught?

I am seriously against the grammar nazism on social networks and young budding writers. To me, social media is a medium for the world to connect. To connect beyond boundaries and differences. We seriously can't allow your immense love for either grammar or perfection to ruin that.

Why are we so quick to judge and not just judge but troll someone for being imperfect?

Aren't we a part of that same infamous, not-so-glorious, never-ending and imperfect clan?

I also want to ask a few selective unknown individuals or rather I should say intellectuals of the same Grammar nazi community.

Why run after perfect grammatical use in informal conversations?

The most beautiful pieces of text in any language could be grammatically incorrect. They should be allowed to be grammatically incorrect.

Writing is not about accuracy, it's not about perfect grammar, neither vocabulary or many syllable words.

For once I can say it's not even about words, It is all about emotions.

Meaningless, incomplete and unpolished words stringed together beautifully as jewels in emotions. Grammar is a great gem to be attributed to a crown but the emotion is the crown itself. Without grammar, the crown may feel incomplete but without emotions, it won't exist.

What comes from earth tearing sadness,

From broken hearts,

From depressed minds,

From unbearable pain,

From a wounded nerve,

From a life-changing emotion,

From the superlative of life and the experience of death

What comes and whatever comes from within needs not be perfect.

Neither are you. Nor am I.

Perfection suits myths and not reality and the absence of perfection all around is a great proof.

All said and done you beautiful souls should surely take all opportunities to improve us. I wish the good does give you grace marks for making us all better humans. [Or grammatically better humans :-) ]

That's it for dessert and apologies on the table for anyone who felt bad about reading this or about any grammatical errors spotted

Hello friends,

I have been asked to write something "Motivational". I have usually written impromptu and without ever being ready for the subject.

Till now I have only written when words have come to me. I try to do the same today but I know the topic beforehand.

I felt the need to write this here and now.

I am not a professional writer but this is what I always do. Whenever I feel there is a need for interaction and with no one in particular,

I express it in words.

It might sound a little strange to you but writing to me is black and white. There is no "GREY" in writing.

It gives me more clarity on my approach and views on a particular subject and hence makes me better.

I won't say that I would change anything with my words but I surely intend to put my perspective of things in words today.

We all have something within us that drives us throughout our lives, Something that keeps us in all the ups and downs of life.

Something that we are never sure of and something that is possibly not the same thing all the time. This is Motivation and you always have it in you.

Another thing that I know about "MOTIVATION" is people only want to take it from successful people.

Success has a lot of defined parameters for each one of us and not many would define me as successful for what I am today.

But regardless I am going to write. For me, it is more important. I don't want to say much, Just share a few things with you amazing people.

There is a reason why we are all different. The differences that we have, help us in a lot of ways.

I think one of the things that's different for all of us is "How we see the world?". Your lenses surely see it differently than my lenses.

I firmly believe that we should see and analyze things from as many lenses as possible.

We are never aware of what our lens is missing. Probably seeing it from your lens may just make things very clear for me or vice versa.

I want to tell you a few things that I have seen with my lenses. A few observations that I feel are worth sharing.

Have you ever observed an egg closely?

Yes, an egg. ( Egg and motivation, Great deal.)

I want to tell you there is a specialty with eggs. It is completely closed. There is no way in or out.

The creature inside this egg waits for the perfect time and when it is perfect it just breaks the shell and comes to life.

It is one of the best lessons I learnt in my life. The creature inside the shell tells us that sometimes in life we will land in problems that have no way out and in problems that we have no idea how we landed in but we need not freak out. It is just for our protection and nourishment.

That once the time is right we can also break the shell and come to life and once we come back from that eggshell (problem) we are a much better person.

Only for what we have experienced.

Here, I also want to add another thing. The eggshell we are talking about it is possible that we won't break it in our first attempt.

We may just have to keep trying again and again to break the eggshell but that does not mean all your attempts when you don't get out of the shell are failures.

Sometimes you may have to deal with this problem with a blacksmith approach.

A blacksmith has to use his hammer 100 times until it breaks down the Iron or it takes the correct shape.

But we need to understand that all his hundred strikes were important to achieve the result.

His success was not the result obtained from the 100th strike but the result obtained by the sum of all 100 strikes.

To break your eggshell(problem) you never know how many strikes it will take. But understand you are always one strike closer to success.

So keep trying one more time until it is the final strike. Until it finally breaks.

Until you know that you have defeated the problem by striking it a 100 times, Never give up. Never failing until you succeeded.

This is not just about writing another article. Unlike all other articles, I intend to achieve something with my words here.

I intend to strike a conversation with you. I want to talk to each one of you. We have all been through or are facing some really tough times in our life.

And some of us have got too much on the plate to deal with.

Don't worry this is not that post where I will question your abilities to deal with stress and situations.

I am sure we are all warriors and warriors never fight to lose. We fight and We either win or vanish fighting but never lose.

I also know this for a fact that we all have a way we want to deal with things.

Especially those of us dealing with depression and anxiety. I know how difficult it is.

I know you have listened to too much already.

I know you don't want to listen to anything more and I know it's dark in there.

But I am not here to talk, I am not here to help and not here to do any favors.

No popular quotes, No many syllable words and No advice on how you should sort things out.

I am just here to tell you I am listening and that I should always be there to listen to you.

I want to tell you that I have complete faith in the person that you are and you would leave these dark traces behind in search of your light.

I am here to draw a "HAND". A hand that wants to help you. A hand that I want to craft with my words.

A hand that tells you about how sure I am about you getting out of your tough times. A hand of Assurance.

I just wanted to do this so that whenever anyone of you does want to talk, you should know that I am available and ready to listen.

I would listen to you without being judgmental and intolerant of your views.

I would listen to you with undivided attention and I would listen to you endlessly.

I am doing this because I want to.

I want to make sure that whenever anyone of you wants to go grab that hand and come out of dark even if for some time they should not be hesitant.

I would also love to listen to examples and observations from your lenses.