Day 417

Today is my parent’s 50^thwedding anniversary.
Golden!

While on the phone with them about 10 days ago, I realized that it is a big deal. I had not really given it much thought. Between work, home improvements and all the other stuff that goes on in my heart and mind, I am often not aware of anything else. It was almost as if I had just learnt that this was going to be a very special occasion.

Well. Now that it had struck me and I had woken up, I had 10 days to do something about. So, we planned a surprise visit from London to India and back at extremely short notice – leave, visa, tickets, gifts and cards! It was as much a surprise for me as for them.

My brothers conspired with me to ensure that my parents would be at home when I got there and the scene was set. When I got home, the front door was already ajar for some reason. I wore my new hat and knocked lightly on the door. Then I walked in nonchalantly. My Mum and Dad were sitting in the front room having a cup of tea with a friend. The expressions on their faces changed several times within a second – from shock to confusion to surprise to disbelief and then utter and pure joy! It was priceless! Big hugs and smiles followed and the story slowly unfolded itself. Various pieces of the jigsaw came together and it absolutely made their day!

I am here as much for myself as for them. While it means a lot to them to have me here on their special day, it makes me happy that I can make them happy. Simple pleasures 🙂 Building memories with those we love. Cherishing them. That’s what it’s about.

While Saagar is with me always, I must remember to go on living for the living.

Day 413

Posted by kidsaregifts20

This is Saagar.

SaagarBWs

If I knew that everyone taking care of him had done everything in their power to help him I would have felt a lot better. While it is very upsetting to see the gaps in knowledge and organization amongst medics, it is clear that there are areas that they don’t even know that they don’t know anything about. One of them is suicide prevention.

Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation(CPR) training is mandatory for all health care professionals because it saves lives. Shouldn’t Suicide Prevention Training be mandatory as well? We know it saves lives.

I heard a truly compassionate psychiatrist speak today, Dr Alys Cole-King. Her vast knowledge and passion about Suicide Prevention was truly inspiring. She is absolutely committed to the cause of Suicide Prevention and spends a lot of her time travelling around the UK working for the cause.

Connecting with People is an organisation set up by her and some of her friends to enable them to have a sizeable impact on reducing deaths by suicide.

I look forward to being able to help them in whatever way I can.

Day 412

Posted by kidsaregifts20

The young lady, possibly 25 years old, sitting 2 tables across from me in the restaurant was alone as was I. Her phone was of course keeping her good company. She paid a lot of attention to it. Every few minutes she called a number and held the phone up to her ear. She got no response. Or may be she got the answer phone message. This happened again and again and again. Each time her face fell further and further to the floor. The light in her eyes diminished a little each time and she went pale and then paler still.
I watched her as discreetly as possible, wondering if she was ok. I wondered if she had called the same number each time or a different one. I wondered if someone was unwell or there was a wobble in a relationship or she wanted to make an appointment with her doctor or …… the possibilities were many.

After half an hour of this process repeating itself she got up to leave. There was no bounce in her step. It looked like she had dragged herself out. Her head hung by her neck. She was visibly upset. I was so tempted to reach out to her and ask her if she was alright and if I could do anything to help. I wanted to offer to stay with her and listen if she wanted to talk about anything. I would listen – no judgements, no advice. Just listen. But I didn’t do that. Or shall I say couldn’t do that? Living in big cities often doesn’t allow for offers like that. That kind of behaviour is far, far away from the norm. In fact, just making proper eye contact with a stranger is tricky. What I was thinking of doing would have probably scared her and she might have thought of me as a ‘freak’.

How come we live in a world where reaching out to someone in distress is not normal? Even if we don’t know each other, we know the human condition, the ebb and flow of life, the value of connectedness between beings. The next time this happens, will I do anything different? What is the worst that can happen? They might not accept my help, which will feel like rejection.

If I can be ok with that then I can do it.

Day 409

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Number of people killed in the recent Paris Attacks:130.
Number of deaths at the Nairobi Massacre: 67
Number of children killed in Syria so far: 12,517.
Number of women killed in Syria: 8,062.
Number of people who died of Ebola in 6 countries: 11,314.
Number of people killed in Afghanistan: 92,000.
Number of civilians among them: 26,000.
Number of casualties in America in 9/11: 2,996
Number of people injured in Afghanistan: 100,000.
(Source: Wikipedia. Other sources quote significantly higher numbers of war casualties.)
War maims countries for generations.

Poverty, malnutrition, no homes or schools, lack of clean drinking water, reduced access to health care, breaking up communities, no law and order, environmental degradation, no infrastructure, no sense of security for self and family members, rape, torture, no protection from extreme weather conditions, constant fear ….

In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems.

Why is a life lost in America or Europe more worthy of mention in mainstream media than anywhere else in the world? What causes western nations to ‘righteously’ impose their values on other countries? How can we justify war again and again and again? Isn’t there enough suffering in the world already? Everyday thousands die of cruel and nasty diseases, of accidents and natural disasters. Why is the human race bent upon self-destruction? Every time one human being uses violence against another, what dies is humanity.

We are a unique race, Homo Sapiens, supposedly the most ‘evolved’ of all.

Really?

Day 406

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Everyday I think, may be today is the day I start referring to Saagar in the past tense. I haven’t been able to do that as yet. I don’t know if I ever will.
Everyday I think today may be the day I will focus on all the things I am grateful for and then the pain might be a bit less. I am ever so grateful yet the pain is no less.
Everyday I think may be I should change all my passwords so that I don’t have to think of him everytime I turn my phone or computer on but that wouldn’t work because he will still be there.

Now, his absence is as present as his presence was. In fact, much much more so. The things we take for granted!

I love to read what his friends have to say about him. They meant the world to him and through them I am getting to see him in a new light. They are a source of strength and solace for me. Their love for him seems pure and unblemished. I wish to immortalise Saagar even though he no longer lives on planet Earth.

“Saagar had a truly unique ability to leave an impression with everyone and anyone he ever met. He transcended social cliques and instead got on with everybody individually – a testament to which is the variety of people who showed up today. For me, the only way to explain this is with reference to how genuine a person he was. By this I mean, he was not concerned with trivial trends or social point scoring – but was instead truly interested in things that matter. There seems to be a culture that is rife at the moment whereby our conversations are dominated by the insignificant and the contrived. Take a moment to eavesdrop next time you are in the Nova smoking area and you may notice this repetitive humdrum: People insist on sharing with the world how much they have been drinking, how much sex they are having and how many drugs they have been taking. Our obsession with the trivial has become endemic. Saagar shared my frustration with this culture and was able to call it out for what it really was: infantile bullshit. As a result, a conversation with him was incredibly refreshing. He was genuinely opinionated about things that actually matter, and used his razor- sharp wit and unwavering rationality to expose things as the way they really are. I felt – like I am sure many of you have felt – that every conversation with Saagar was a blessing. A pinprick of sanity to burst the insane student bubble in which we live.

As I stand here, still struggling to talk about such a presence in the past tense, I am comforted by the fact that the lessons we learnt from Saagar will never leave us. The most important one he taught me was pride. No matter what, Saagar remained unapologetically proud about so much in his life, and this pride was truly contagious. He took pride in his upbringing, and the sheer courage it took for him to move from India, to a period of racial bullying in Belfast to the drastically different setting of one of the country’s leading public schools (although speaking from experience – public schools are perhaps not the best place to seek refuge from racism!). This did not affect him in the slightest however. In fact – he remained so proud of being brown that he resorted to smoking out of liquorice rolling papers that were as brown as he was. Proud of the friends he made, and proud of the experiences he shared with them. Whilst he may no longer be with us, this pride lives on in each of us – as we are all immeasurably proud to have known him, and prouder still of how he chose to spend his tragically short time on this earth, leaving little more than the wisdom he imparted, the compassion he shared and the untiring friendships he made.”

Ooooodles of love to you and all your friends Saagar. xxx