<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2022/sep/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Suicide is painless&nbsp; It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it If I please Theme song from M*A*SH
Nats, my Gen Z neighbour was not her natural self&mdash;her demeanour was different, beneath the usual bubbling Mt Vesuvius, was a visible layer of grief.
The trademark &lsquo;eye rolls&rsquo; were absent, as Nats paced up and down my flat, stream of consciousness half-sentences flowed.
&ldquo;Why did you do it? Godu why? Selfish ya,&rdquo; she fumed &ldquo;You were 19&hellip; you didn&rsquo;t talk to me&hellip; not to anyone.,. WTF dude.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Slow down Nats kiddo, what&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; I asked Natasha, concerned.
&ldquo;Godavari, my chaddi buddy from Class V, hung herself. She and I came from Hoshiarpur to Mumbai together, me to get away from my family, she to seek a career in films&hellip; me in SoBo, she in the suburbs,&rdquo; Nats voice trailed off.
&ldquo;Natasha! I&rsquo;m so sorry for your loss.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Bruh&hellip; my heart breaks, because I&rsquo;m asking why now. She&rsquo;d dealt with so much&hellip; the casting couch, cooped up with no work through COVID, crap city life, and just when things were getting &lsquo;awes&rsquo; for her... she decides to &lsquo;leave&rsquo;.&rdquo;
&ldquo;She didn&rsquo;t seek therapy?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t afford a shrink ya, Rahul uncle.&rdquo;
I tried to be philosophical.
&ldquo;Look Jean-Luc Godard&hellip; called it a night,&rdquo; I began.
&ldquo;Dude&hellip; you&rsquo;re comparing Godard with Godavari, He was 91&hellip; she was 19! Huge difference!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Natasha&hellip; Godavari at 19&hellip; and Godard at 91, it makes no difference. When you feel your time is up, it&rsquo;s up!&rdquo;
&ldquo;With due respect to the man, and he was a master, whichever story you &lsquo;believe&rsquo;, whether he was &lsquo;exhausted&rsquo;, or was crippled by &lsquo;multiple disabling pathologies&rsquo;, he&rsquo;s lived a full life&hellip; my friend was a teenager.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Suicide doesn&rsquo;t have an age limit&hellip; it&rsquo;s your call to take when you want to pack it in.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Rubbish, you&rsquo;re talking like a pontificating uncle&hellip; hanging yourself &nbsp;in a cramped Sakinaka flat is not the same as &lsquo;assisted suicide&rsquo; in a posh Swiss clinic.&rdquo;
I felt for Nats and the fear and frustration, she was &nbsp;feeling.
&ldquo;Was she depressed and sad?&rdquo; I persisted.
&ldquo;No way I&rsquo;m buying that&hellip; you know bruh... she and I were making silly morbid jokes&hellip; &lsquo;What do you call the act of young people commiting suicide? Answer: &lsquo;Youthanasia&rsquo;&hellip;and we&rsquo;d crack up!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Look, dying is a part of the process of living.&rdquo;
&ldquo;How can you be so philosophical? You&rsquo;re talking like suicide is the most normal thing.&rdquo;
I paused.
&ldquo;Why you pausing dude?&rdquo;
&ldquo;I have a theory Nats, if you feel your time here on earth is done, if you&rsquo;ve achieved all that you want to&hellip; or you just feel you don&rsquo;t wanna go on&hellip; or the fight goes out of you&hellip; or you&rsquo;re just irretrievably depressed&hellip; you have a right to end it!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; Nads argued.
&ldquo;Loneliness isn&rsquo;t about not having people around you. It&rsquo;s a feeling of &lsquo;solo&rsquo;, emptiness.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nats, we all have a dark side&hellip; it&rsquo;s just that we choose to be in the light, most of the time&hellip; but the darkness is never far away, beckoning you&hellip; and your Godavari, entered a very dark place. &rdquo;
&ldquo;I beg to differ.&rdquo;
&ldquo;And that is your right, dear Nats.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Look I get as depressed as the next guy. I mean come on we&rsquo;re Gen Z right? Everything is messed up, everything makes us mad, we&rsquo;re mental, man. But it passes, you can&rsquo;t give up the fight so easily. If you step off a balcony, you tie a noose&hellip; that&rsquo;s cowardice!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nats&hellip; Godard once said, every movie has a beginning middle and end, just not necessarily in that order.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Is that some metaphor?&rdquo;
&ldquo;No, my dear Nats. I&rsquo;m saying, Godard who tore up the rule book without bothering to read it&hellip; he did so in his life too&hellip; the belief that we must battle till the end, come what may, is a misnomer, whether it&rsquo;s a maze of &nbsp;tubes or a haze of terror&hellip; you get to take that call.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s agree to disagree, Rahul uncle. I&rsquo;m gonna bounce.&rdquo;
&ldquo;On last thing, I wanna say, to both Godavari, and Jean-Luc Godard. Rest well, you made your choices... even if it was against God&rsquo;s will.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Cool words, bruh, &nbsp;but it doesn&rsquo;t bring either of them back to life!&rdquo; she concluded.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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The trademark ‘eye rolls’ were absent, as Nats paced up and down my flat, stream of consciousness half-sentences flowed.

Natasha aka Nats and the End

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Natasha aka Nats and the End

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