Prologue

“He died of suicide on Sunday by hanging himself to death,” said Rashid.

Overtaken by a great tremor, I burst out into tears, unable to utter a single word, and choked on my sobs. The sound of my wailing echoed throughout the house that my mum and Manisha came running to my room to see me collapsing onto the floor.

On seeing me, instantly, tears raced down my mum’s cheeks. As both of them neared me, I began to wriggle messily on the floor as if trying to subside the grief.

“What happened, Mohit?” I vaguely heard Manisha say.

“A… Aa…”

I couldn’t say his name. I could feel my throat tightening and my breath shortening.

“… is … is… is…”

My breath hitched repeatedly, but I continued speaking unintelligibly.

“... no more, Manu.”

I howled aloud when I said it and hugged Manisha and my mum hard for solace.

Tears escaped from their eyes, followed by their palms patting on my shoulders and head. How wouldn’t they cry for him? He had become so close to my family members as to me within a month of his stay in my home.

They spoke something, which I presumed was something to console me. But, I couldn’t hear anything. Everything they spoke was gibberish. All I could hear was a high-pitched scream, which I didn’t realize until much later was my own.

Rashid was his cousin and an ex-boyfriend of one of my friends. His name came to my mind as the final resort to know why he hadn’t come back to Delhi. He left Delhi on Friday. Sunday afternoon was when I finally spoke to him. I told him I had made an appointment with a psychiatrist, and we would go to the psychiatrist on Monday.

Yes, he had asked me to take him to a psychiatrist.

On Friday, in the evening, both of us were at Dwarka metro station. That was where I met him for the last time. Our fingers were intertwined, and our sweaty palms kissed each other. He was looking at the floor, and I at his face. His face was as emotionless as it had been for many days.

“Mohit, take me to a doctor.” His voice couldn’t have been more toneless. “I mean a psychiatrist”.

“What’s the matter?”

“I am not able to explain what exactly is happening to me, Mohit. But, I am sure that I am abnormal. I feel like crying. I feel like I want to constantly think about what Sanju did to me, and I am not able to bear it,” he spoke monotonously.

While my mind was weaving something to tell him, his gaze was still on the floor, and his next words were uttered sotto voce. “And… something inside me is urging me to die.”

I heard him clearly.

“Are you mad?” I spoke softly even though I wanted to yell at him.

He remained silent. I knew getting angry must have been my last reaction. I had said that I would take him to a psychiatrist on Monday. I made a mistake. I must have taken him to a doctor on Friday. I mustn’t’ve let him go to his home. I could probably have saved him if he had been with me.

He told me he’d return on Monday, but he didn’t. I rang him constantly at least a thousand times on Monday. I could feel my heart rate soaring with each call he missed. That entire night, I was trembling and sweating with fear, and didn’t sleep for a minute. I was paralyzed to my bed, for a good few hours, helpless; the menacing aura that something bad had happened to him held me to my bed in a tightening grip. I thought of calling his mum (whom he had gone to meet during the weekend), but I didn’t know her mobile number. Fear was then a corporeal beast that was eating me up, and in the morning while I remembered Rashid, the beast had consumed me entirely.

When I called Rashid, all that I asked was why he hadn’t returned to Delhi. Rashid didn’t answer. I asked what had happened to him.

Rashid bluntly said, “He died.”

Fear had immobilized my brain, and I couldn’t make out what he said or perhaps I just couldn’t believe what he said.

Why should he say “he died” of all?

“What?” I asked.

He could’ve said that he’d met with an accident. Even if it had been a major accident in which he’d lost his limbs, I would’ve survived the disasters within myself because I could’ve then seen him alive.

“He died of suicide on Sunday by hanging himself to death.”

This time I clearly heard what he said. He was gone, wouldn’t return, and I wouldn’t be able to take him to the psychiatrist as I promised. I failed him.

Anyone who met him for the first time could have made out that he was intensely upset though he pretended to be happy. Then, how come I failed to scrutinize it? Especially when I was the closest person to him on Earth during that whole month.

Many times, I have myself noticed that he was forcing himself to smile. He was faking his smile so much that I once felt that his smile was long dead and was like the smile of a plastic Barbie doll; he was pretentious. Most of the time, his face was emotionless, and his voice was toneless to the extent that I thought he was a living robot.

He always made every effort not to show that he was depressed, and always made a point to cover up his inner feelings. He didn’t want anyone to see how hurt he was and didn’t want anyone to be able to tell he was hurt. So he just tried to be the opposite. But, he lacked the expertise to be pretentious. Including me, no one would have believed he was happy. But, I couldn’t care less.

Those days, I felt that I was very supportive to him, because I listened to him when he spoke about his sorrows, and I used to advise him. But now, I regret that I was immersed in the idea of becoming a social justice warrior. I was busy helping poor people get jobs that paid them peanuts. I failed the person who relied on me entirely. I wish I had taken his problems more seriously. I wish I could turn back the wheels of time; tend to his inner wounds; and be a shoulder for him to lean on. At least then, maybe, he would've still been alive and breathing.

I cried and cried throughout that day. I had no more tears.