The Story of A Suicide - A Review

It is overwhelmingly sad that suicide seems the easiest option to end the humiliation and the sense of being a failure in life, while a helping hand seems so distant. We are losing so many beautiful and deep people every single minute. They might have just needed a tight embrace, a listening ear, and a caring shoulder to change their decision to end their lives. Someone to understand them, instead of mocking or thwarting their decision; to make them realize that the future is more than the pain they see, and death is not the peace or gratification they seek.

The story of a suicide has explored the various reasons behind these hapless self-inflicted deaths. Someone is a jilted lover, someone a gay, someone needing a bit more attention to stopping feeling negligible, someone who feels fake or not successful enough, someone who confuses her worth with perfectionism - giving us a peek into their lives through small chapters, so we can understand them better and empathize with them. No problem can be solved if we do not delve deep. You cannot make a person change his mind unless you yourself dare to wear his shoes to understand him. It is daunting, yet the only way. “You are a wonderful person, dear! Never dare forget that!” a simple thing to say, yet effective enough in boosting one’s self-worth.

So I sit and read the chapters one after another, trying to find an honest understanding of the situation, without judging. I must say this is a totally new kind of story writing by Sriram Ayer.

Plot and Characters:

Sam and Priya are in a relationship that has long lost its essence. Sam keeps busy in his tweets every single opportune minute while Priya craves his attention. She has started to feel stifled in the relationship where her boyfriend has time to be with her but no time to listen to her. She breaks up with him finally, with much difficulty, and pours her heart out in her blog. Meanwhile, Sam is shocked, can’t forget Priya and tries to get along in his new college new academic year.

Hari is adopted by Mr.Hegde’s family- everyone loves him in the family. He is close to his elder sister Anju who  loves him, tries to understand him, price out his deep secrets without judging him. He is gay and has a problem in accepting it. He attends seminars to understand himself and the prospect of any happy future that he might expect.

Sam’s new muse Charu is philosophical- she is awesome in playing the role of Draupadi who meets Caesar- she too has a back-story. Mani who tried to commit suicide hanging himself in his hostel room and was timely saved, too, has a tumultuous past. Each one of the characters does have past demons, which refuse to leave their minds. Mani has memories of physical and emotional abuse by his own father; while Hari hides his own nightmarish flash-backs of sexual abuse suffered as a child.

Sam and Charu grow close, Alex peeks in between. Drama happens. Tweeterati is full on for Sam, the tweeter addict. Charu feels wronged by Sam and makes an audacious Facebook post humiliating Sam before his entire college. Sam seeks his revenge, installs a Trojan app named ‘Jarvis’ in her phone. Cyber crime and climax happen. Hari reveals his traumatic childhood to Mani and seeks solace with him.

I am confused about Mani’s character. I did like him at first, but the sudden gloomy and dark turn of events didn’t leave a good impression of him. You cannot trust anyone, even the seemingly nice person. Sam turns out to be a jealous weird possessive freak. I don’t understand his rapid change of heart multiple times. Hari’s family comes to know that he is gay. He is depressed. His father doesn’t accept him and says that he might need to commit suicide because of him. Sad! Mindset causes such havoc in lives.

Narrative:

I like the different styles of narration that some chapters have. A series of facebook comments, or tweets, or messages. It feels recent and has a college-goer’s touch. I like how the national geographic channel’s commentary, or certain anecdote, or a newspiece are used as analogies to the character’s real life situations. Some chapters have great dialogues, one of them is ‘Caesar meets Draupadi’- it was very enjoyable theater experience. ‘The dance of Death’ has a very elaborate dream sequence. Loved the description. The queen bee episode was horror story cum sensational crime scene. I loved the quote -‘Keep searching, you achieve nothing by staying put, even if you don’t find what you wanted, you would have at least had a journey’ – it almost sums up life.

It has just 26 chapters and one can read it in just a few hours. The story is engrossing and well written. The art accompanying the descriptions in the site also adds essence to the story. It also has an audiobook, one can find it easily on the website. The story has accompanying 'how to..' articles for every single chapter, which are great indeed- realistic advice. 'How do I deal with harassment?' 'How do I help other victims of abuse?' and many others. Do explore. It's quite a creatively interactive storytelling site. 

I think it’s important to surround yourself with positive people, positive facebook newsfeed and draw your own daily dose of inspiration. Life can be messy at times, we need to keep going. We are all here for a reason, so never underestimate your worth. The universe has secret plans for you.