Read The Whole Story or Don't Read At All

Read and share, if you think this story needs to be told.

''People around us will never accept our love for each other, and I shall never be able to live without her. God will never forgive those responsible for our deaths. Brother, if we die together, then cremate us together; let us stay together in death at the least. And if we (manage to) survive this, then we shall go someplace far, far away, and shall never return to trouble you guys…''

This was the first suicide letter I was ever seeing from so close. A letter, so carefully written, in impeccable grammar, the Bangla words resembling Art on the foolscap papers they had been etched upon. The sheets had been meticulously numbered…1,2,3… a total of six. The letter had been very ironically titled ‘The Story Of My Life’

''She loves me a lot/And so do I/ I Love her more than my own life/And I don’t know why.’ This little couplet was followed by a more detailed account of events leading up to their final destination. ‘….She had been married off forcefully, into a home of torture, where her husband beat her up regularly. And in my locality, people would make fun of me, of my nature, ridicule me endlessly everyday. They would even taunt my family for the way I was. Death seems an easier way out, than to have to deal with such ridicule everyday. In my family, everyone loves me a lot. I don’t want them to have to deal with this loss. Brother, take care of Mom-Dad, don’t let them feel any pain or sorrow, look after Sis… And please don’t stay angry with me. I hold nothing against you all…'' broken sentences from a broken heart, exuding heartache and melancholy, against the backdrop of a perfectly still dusk, in which my camera was panning into this Swan-song of a lost girl called Sapna, who, ironically, could not live her dreams.

I had gone to Nandigram to cover a story. About Sapna Mandal and Sucheta Mandal- The story of a couple’s suicide. With insecticide. Their bodies were found, in the early hours of dawn, beside the field at a far edge of their village, in which the local annual Veer Hanuman festival was taking place. Sapna, 23, used to tutor little kids at her own home. Sucheta was barely 19. She had been married off recently. When the two of them were found dead, each had her hands locked in the other’s. Both of them had the same dupatta wrapped around their waists. Sapna was found wearing her brother’s shirt, and jeans, and Sucheta was in a red salwar-kameez. The village-folk said – ''They lay together, so calmly, so beautifully, if one saw them, one would have no idea that they had poisoned themselves to death. They just lay there, staring into each other’s eyes so peacefully…'' It took me a while to realize that the same people that now spoke of the two girls with so much affection, had once called for a meeting of the people in the village, asking for appropriate punishment to be meted out to the two girls. The girls’ behavior, according to them, had been so uncouth, so unacceptable, that the elders of the village had ordered that the two girls be completely banned from meeting each other, and be married off, as soon as possible.

Continued on "Read the Whole Story Part-II"