SUICIDE- STUDIES IN BLACK AND WHITE:SANJEEV MOHAN

'Ich bin nicht gern, wo ich herkomme.
Ich bin nicht gern, wo ich hinfahre.'
(From 'Der Radwechsel' by Bertolt Brecht)

'The vulture is a resilient animal and its
numbers will increase again!'
(From a newspaper report)


(i)

NO BIG DEAL
It's no big deal: dying, that is;
Other things matter and are hard to do.
But dying, the simple leap into the abyss,
The tightening noose, rat poison, whatever.

Once you've taken the first step,
The rest is easy; the very first step,
The decision to end it all
In one fell swoop,

That's the tricky part.
For the insidious mind
Invents all kinds of reasons
For going on: ties and more ties,

All of them suffocating, engulfing,
Smothering in their cloying intensity.
All of them equally irrelevant,
Yet terrifying in their insistence.

Few of us actually manage
To penetrate this utter pointlessness.
I mean, we all know it's
Not meant to last forever.

Give or take a couple of months,
Years, days, minutes, seconds,
Whatever. How does it matter whether
It's today, tomorrow or the day after?


(ii)

FREE WILL
Tired of singing paeans
to gods who don't care a damn,
while debts mount
and the rains refuse
to arrive, the crops rem-
ain unsold and the sp-
irit withers in the sun,

the farmer seeks the sens-
ible way out.


(iii)
FOR THOSE WITH EYES TO SEE
For those of us unafraid of darkness
or the emptiness of eternity;
For those of us unafraid of the stern warrior
or his mighty bull;
For those of us unafraid of rhetoric and whom
vapid verses have not claimed;

For those of us who don't wish to linger
between insipid dreams;
For those of us who prefer the even twilight
to the harsh light of day;
For those of us who are clear-sighted enough
to see through deception;

It is better by far to shred these veils of illusion,
and rid oneself of the dull throb between the ears.


(iv)

GHUTAN
Donate my eyes, bottle my spleen
Or puncture my esophagus
Pierce my liver, chop my kidneys (and
whatever else goes with it).
Put any cancers you may find
out on display --- scrutinize them,
photograph them, mock them,
Feed my carcass to the dogs,
vultures, whatever.

Only a pharaoh need be embalmed.


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(Note: 'Ghutan' is the Hindi word for sense of claustrophobia induced by one's environment)