Many years back, my parents presented me with a copy of the adventures of Vikramaditya. Not the abridged version, but the complete collection. I couldn’t quite understand the seductive nature of the stories, but something stood out – an image later occurring in The Arabian Nights. Supernatural beings which congregated around death, especially females. It was a strong image, something which remains in my heart after all these years because I got curious about them more than all the beautiful princesses and sex in those stories. There was something quite compelling and appealing about death, which drew me nearer into its allurement. It wasn’t until I saw the movie ‘American Beauty’ that I realised that I was in fact, infatuated with the idea of death. I was enthralled with the possibilities of it and what I perceived to be the finale of consciousness, rather than an end. It was oblivion. I wanted to know what it felt like.
To understand this psyche, you have to watch the world through my eyes, which since isn’t quite possible, might be illustrated as follows. Consider yourself seeing everything you think, every violent act you can think of. When I want to smash my brother’s head in, I don’t think, I see. Time stops and I see it. I see the blood running down his forehead, the walls coated with crimson. I see it, like in the movies, in a vivid microsecond. It is scary. When I travel by train, I see myself jumping into the deep waters below. I imagine myself drowning. When I cross the road, it is another chance that I would be closer to death. I have killed myself a thousand times in my head. But thoughts can get you only so far. I have tried to, in reality, but stopped myself in that last moment when reason struck. When I descend a flight of stairs, at times I get an image of me at the bottom with a broken neck. It is not something I do purposefully. It is something in me, which draws me deeper and deeper into the darkness, the more I allow myself to be tempted by it. Not long back, I climbed this cliff at a beach and stood at the edge and looked down. I was afraid to go near the edge. Not because I might fall, but because I might jump. I could feel the tension in my body as I tried to act normal and take photos. Every day, at least once I think how I COULD die.
That is where the paradox happens. I am not unhappy. I am not a melancholy person. I am a person who loves life, who loves to smile and laugh a lot and who is said to radiate a warm positivity. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with me. It took me a lot of time to learn that. All my life I had been trying to fit into an image, an image for every person, which would give me some form of acceptance till I evolved into this equilibrium where I know myself. I accept that I am emotionally unstable and unpredictable, I accept I am much more sensitive than most people, I accept that I have what they call ‘over expressiveness’ because I am animated. So naturally most people cannot see the duality that exists in me. But, most people don’t matter. Some do. What happens when you hurt those some people over and over again, just because they love you? A sort of guilt is generated, which consumes you. Unfortunately for those loved ones, I am over that guilt. Because I also accept that I am a bit to the dark side. I cannot write happy poetry. It was a struggle for me to find my voice, but I am there and it is dark and melancholy and intense. I accept me. But my mother could never accept that I love death. Or anything dark. My best friend still gets concerned and gives a tiny caution if she feels I have forayed too much into the forbidden emotional realm. There is a constant blanket of love which gets restless when I talk of grey and black.
I would never say they shouldn’t feel what they feel. I cannot help that. But I cannot help my behaviour either. It is time they realise that I am not going to kill myself just because I want to. It is my character. When I say, ‘hey, I feel like killing myself.’ I mean it, but I am not going to do it. It is only a sign of that duality within me. It is my way of communicating with me. A way of coping with the contradictions in me. When I think it out loud, I am putting the thought into clear terms and giving it a touch of lightness. The thought goes away with the wind. Yes, sometimes there is a small battle in me. I still seek help from my loved ones and put them on alert if I feel I might need a reminder. I still get tempted to do a lot of horrific things to myself. I need to at times keep my impulses in check when I know I am tempted by the obvious opportunity to embrace death. But that battle has evidently, always been won by the will to live. Not to exist, but live. That is what I wish my loved ones could see.
You might be wondering why I wrote this post. It is a way of reaching out to those who might see it and need it. Just to let that person know that s/he is not a weirdo for loving death or the ‘dark stuff’ for no apparent reason. You could, like me, be just born that way. It is not a disease, just a tiny part of who you are. For me, as Peter Pan says, ignorant of what death would be, "To die will be an awfully big adventure". That excitement is what charms me.
