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Saturday, July 31, 2004

Moneycontrol.com - Portfolio

The day after Nafisa Joseph committed suicide.... She shut herself in a room and used her dupatta to hang herself... over some fight with her boyfriend... whom she was supposed to marry in August, that is, next month....

No, I don't know Nafisa Joseph... I have only seen her compereing the Kala Ghoda music festival at... where else... Kala Ghoda. She struck me as articulate... beautiful... glamorous... desirable, in short. Any man would think of her as fantasy material... that sort. Well, why did such a beautiful girl have to end her life? If not one she could have got many... she had talent... that something that makes her stand out... noticed. There would be thousands of guys swooning... to get a look at her.

But is that the truth of fame and fortune? There is a dark interior to the tinsel exterior.... Another star aspirant also died in mysterious circumstances... the price one pays of fame is great. Some people would go to any extent... it is a tight rope walk... you either make it to the other end or fall... very deeply... and die....

What makes people take this extreme step? The crucial decision to end a life... it is taken, I guess, in a moment of extreme madness... when all else seem to fail and the mind clutches at straws and none of the straws is strong enough....

I have derived great satisfaction from spirituality and faith... it is in such circumstances that I hold on to my faith... and it has given me steadfast relief from the traumas of life... life is hard...

We don't realize how hard life is today... for example... imagine yourself without the things you take for granted today. Like transportation... imagine you had to walk all the way to work... I have thought of this... it would take you six hours to do that... you would have only time to come to work and go back... but then imagine how much work you do before going back... with your hands... organizing your work... interacting... communicating... viciously ignoring negative elements... proactively encouraging good elements... getting back at that bossy bitch (bastard) in the big cabin... with their big perquisites.

It is crazy... have we thought what complexly wired people we are. Our lives are dependent on the many things we contribute, and thereby, get the compensation for. But they take away much of the compensation through credt/debit cards and long distance phone calls and innocent looking service charges... a small service charge for the food you ate... some small amount for the funds you transferred... which you don't mind... but actually should... because nobody gave it to you for free....

Models actresses... what can I say... what do they contribute? They contribute to the gloss that makes products sell... ultimately the service charge that goes to pay their salaries and that of the gullible ones who buy their products... it's a big manipulative cycle... products need promotion... promotions need models... models need cosmetics... cosmetics need... young girls... young girls need products... so eternally the cycle of vanity goes on!

All this goes on while farmers elsewhere in the mainlands of India are committing suicide when the rains fail to fall. They are killing themselves by the dozens. They look at the skies with desperation in their eyes and then go and hang themselves on a tree or something. The cycle is also vicious for them. They take loans... fail to pay them back... again take loans... like models take auditions for better assignments... and one day the hollowness of it all dawns on them that all they have lived and slaved for don't seem to be adding up to anything. Meaning... things they take as definite and finite no longer seem to be... they become vague and fade away....

Life is worth holding on to... if you believe in something first of all... so start believing... if you don't believe... force yourself to believe... if you still can't believe... read... understand... discuss... life assumes new meaning then.... Yes, you believed in animal rights... and animal freedom... what about human freedom... freedom of your soul... is it any wrong to desire that?

Nafisa, why did you have to do it? If only you asked me... on the balmy nigth when I watched you from the thirtieth row from the stage... in the mid section with the strobe lights reflecting in your eyes... the celebration of your celebrity stardom... I could have told you this blunt truth of life....

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