The Entity called spouse.

It is Friday and instead of nursing my Robusta at the mango meadows or 91 springboard, and mulling over why Kerala got flooded, I am listening to Maria go combusta…

“How can I prove that I am alive? Do you think slicing my wrist will help.”

Though the right answer for that would have been, no, you will be picked up to the nearest trauma center and stitched up.

Now Maria comes up with various issues quite often and it usually follows a proposal for suicide or for homicide. Her argument is Homicide is suicide but the added advantage is we keep the society safe, as the perpetrator is eliminated. This huge conversation and discussion on suicide then follows.

By now I quite know the drill, so I ask,”Maria do you really want to die?”

“ I wonder if I am alive at all… committing suicide is confirm that I was alive sometime.” Now this is a new one, I heard of people bleeding to affirm that they are alive.  Before I could say anything Maria goes,”No one commits suicide because they want to die.”

“Oh! then why do they do it?”

“To stop the pain”

Here is the next cue “what is so painful right now Maria”

“well the family” now Maria has this wonderful way of referring her husband’s family. She just calls them the Family like one would refer to the family of a Mafia leader or probably the Nehru-Gandhi family was thus addressed.

I knew her husband was sick and his family had descended,”Well I do all the stuff and family behave like I am not there.” I like the way Maria mimics the various voices of the “Family” over the years I have come to recognize who the voice belongs to.

“Awais what will you do Isabel is not there” Isabel by the way is Maria’s 19yr. Old daughter.

“Jesus, Theresa is here, how will you manage?” Theresa is Maria’s sister-in-law.

“Do you see” Maria was demanding,”its only the absence of other women, men don’t seem to count.” Maria’s in-laws always seem to have an issue with her. She is still fuming, her over all appearance is of angry nostril flaring hippo.

“why is it so difficult for them to accept that I am there.” Said fretting and fuming, “I shall put up a facebook status, hello family thank you for the love and care you shower on James. Isbel will be back over the weekend, until then there is this entity who resides in a biologic physic form, the legal status of this entity is spouse. This spouse is fairly capable for looking after James. And the fear of article 302 also prevents the above mentioned entity from harming James.”

Once the venting is over Maria moves on, but I am musing over thing. Sipping Bru instead of by Robusta brew. After all today is the world suicide prevention day, I am thinking about suicide. And to frank I think killing oneself is a misnomer. We do not kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long hard struggle to stay alive. When someone dies after battling long illness we convert them into martyrs, saying “he or she fought so hard.” But suicide is to many giving up, the presumption there is no battle involved. When a warrior under attack knows that his battle would inevitably lead to his death, he could choose to kill himself, the hara-kiri or whatever the male equivalent of Jauhar. We glorify it to a certain extent even encourage it… this is happened over centuries it is considered honourable…suicide is when you are under the attack or sieze of your own mind. Yet sharing a thought by Dorothy Parkar.

“Résumé
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope

This is a musing shared on the world suicide prevention day.