Panchi chala uss desh ko…

No, this is not one more post on Sushant Singh Rajput or how brilliant he was and how he was victimized by Bollywood biggies or a hate post on known names. Neither is it a passionate post on how it could be a murder that is being branded as suicide and how it is all one big conspiracy theory. It is also not a post on how depression is a silent killer. It is just a few random thoughts on the impermanence of life on the whole, in the light of this young man’s death, whom I cannot get out of my head! A word of caution – I will not sympathize or victimize or be judgemental about anything here. These are just my thoughts.

I always found the guy very handsome and good looking and near perfect. Not the tall dark handsome sort but personally, what always stood out for me were those exceptionally bright eyes and that effortless smile. No, he did not need to quiver his lips to produce a rippling effect into women’s hearts… he was the boy next door with a smile that could warm the cockles of the heart. He could make stupid faces, roll on the floor with his dog without thinking how he would look after he gets up, goof up on a video with his friends, dance crazily without a hoot to the world and be completely and uncannily human and not a movie star. He was a kid with dreams, dreams of a better life for himself and for many others around him. He dreamt of the stars, of the infinite and yet how tragically finite his own journey was!

This connects the entire thought process to another person we lost recently – Irrfan Khan! Strange, how we come to know so much more about them when they are no more around. It was only after they were gone that we came to know what a brilliant mind Sushant had or that Irrfan had dropped “Nawaabzada” from his name to avoid his entitled birth status. I mean, why and how are such things even relevant now that we cannot let them know how their being special makes a difference to this world.

And once they are gone, we speculate to try and find reasons, we try to put the blame on something or someone, we keep going back to photos and moments captured with the person, we relive memories and perhaps we even keep asking that “WHY?” But when the thin line between “what was” and “what can be” appears, the vision gets blurred by tears, and not all of them can be seen! Death is the only thing permanent in our lives and yet, no matter how and when it comes, it is the most challenging thing to accept, especially so when it happens out of the blue and leaves us unprepared or in denial.

I have my own way of accepting such occurrences – I believe they are there… just not within my radar. Silently they live their lives far from the maddening crowd and social media, numbers lost, identity lost, they live in some other country, some other city where they continue to enrich people with their glorious presence. That is easy to accept for me when their daily lives have been far removed from mine. But for personal instances, the painful acceptance has been the only way out.

But, I guess painful as they are – closures are important. At least we know that they are not there anymore… way better than living with a possibility or possibilities. I have been there too, but that again is a different story for some other time! For now, remembering a kid gone too soon and a man who could have given so much more…

“Panchi chala uss desh ko… Hai jahaan raaton mein subah ghuli..
Panchi chala pardesh ko… Ki jahaan waqt ki gath khuli,
Ruan ruan roushan hua dhuan dhuan jo tann hua..
Haan noor ko aise chakha meetha meetha ye mann hua…”

Song: Ruan Ruan
Movie: Sonchiriya (2019)
Music: Vishal Bharadwaj
Lyrics: Varun Grover