JOIN USMark the exhilaration and festivity engulfing an entire home at the birth of a child – rather from the news of conception itself. A new life is ever welcome. The family, state and society invest heavily on nurturing, education and development of an individual, materially and otherwise.
Yet, the human mind remains too intricate an entity with some of its manifestations like self-harm or endeavour to end one’s life defying all sense.
Unmindful of what Darwin P Kingsley said, “You have powers you never dre-amed of, you can do things you never thought you could do,” worldwide, suicide takes an annual toll of over eight lakh people and many times more attempting it.
Suicidal deaths could rise to 1.5 million by 2020; it is a preventable public health problem triggering half of all violent deaths besides economic costs in billions of dollars, says the Wo-rld Health Organisation (WHO).
It is to save precious human lives from annihilation that the International Association for Suicide Prevention (ISAP) with WHO has been observing September 10 as World Suicide Prevention Day since 2003. Two basic assumptions behind the day’s observance are: suicide is preventable and connectedness reduces the risk of suicide. Hence this year’s theme is, ‘Connect, Communicate, Care.’
Enabling the people vulnerable to suicide to communicate effectively is a vital component of any suicide prevention strategy. Involvement of persons with suicidal tendency and those who lost someone to suicide or directly supported such people can be particularly beneficial in suicide prevention campaigns. The vulnerable are to be assured, what George Bernard Shaw said that “life is about creating yourself.”
Reasons behind actual and attempted suicides reported recently include inability of a 21-year old Haryanvi singer Sapna Choudhary to withstand the online harassment against her and aspersions on her character; ignominy of being Nirbhaya gang-rape convict – Vinay Sharma awaiting death sentence in Delhi’s Tihar Jail; work place haras-sment of a senior doctor in GTB Hospital Delhi; and, debarment from sitting in the sixth semester exams at Amity Law School, Noida due to short attendance.
Or, jumping on Delhi’s metro track as a Delhi University student at Miranda House had difficulty compromising that the practical exams did not go well; perplexity of a 25-year-old man in Ghazipur, Delhi after strangulating the married beloved and subsequently hanging himself; fuelling of emotions of a 50-year-old man after shooting his 35-year-old married lover, before killing himself near Padam-pura in Sriganganagar, Rajas-than; being scolded by mother for not studying, in Padui village, Banda district; in Indore, Bharti Rajawat, a 23-year old fashion designer hanging herself to death as her family was searching for a perfect groom for her.
The pattern shows that a majority of suicide perpetrators are young, between 21-30 years, and the common triggers are tensions due to low academic achievement, failure in examinations, marital discord, heavy indebtedness, sexual abuse, work place harassment, domestic violence or frustration in love and perceived notion to cope with it. The thought of ending one’s life is transitory, hardly 30 second-long, and if that situation could be diffused, one is most likely to reverse the decision.
Agony of loneliness
At the centre, however is the agony of loneliness and none to share the intrinsic concerns. What the 16th century essayist Francis Bacon said of isolatedness of modern man, “Bigger the city, lonelier the man is,” holds equally true in isolated lifestyle of this day.
Unbridled greed for material possessions, lack of will to share with others whatever is in excess of actual needs and limiting one’s concerns to one’s own self, spouse and children have confined men to live in their ivory shells; they just want a decent façade and set behaviour sans spontaneity and intimacies.
Many parents unwittingly prefer an exclusive living room for their five-year child ward thus depriving him proximity so essential for his well-being and putting him at risk of stress, mental disorders and suicide.
An average human brain is armed with some 12 billion neurons, each capable to interact with 25,000 other – a capacity far in excess of the world’s largest mainframe computer – so that man doesn’t restrict to his own needs and comforts – creatures of lower orders also do that befittingly – but instead to use his tremendous inherent capabilities to serve the bigger role carved out for him.
Man without ulterior purpose eventually renders one redundant, a burden to everyone and his own self. That sense imparts us strength to address the odds that are part of life, and must be addressed. Only one has to keep looking up, as Charlie Chaplin said, “You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down.”