One day of my life

Yesterday was a lovely day but for something that I am yet to come to terms with.

I know someone. Someone with whom I must have exchanged maximum five sentences till date. I realised that the person was on my friends list. So I said 'hi'...after years maybe.

What followed was a barrage of hate mails....in utmost coarse, disgusting and discrediting form of prose. It took me some time to gather what just happened. When have I hurt this person? When have I done anything to harm this person? I hardly know him! We had spoken maybe once or twice. He was a bright, soft spoken youngster. The only reason I remember him is because he was nice to me in my time of crisis and had offered to help (which I never availed of).

As the day progressed, my shock turned into disbelief. Disbelief into worry. Worry into serious concern. At this point I could not hold myself back. This boy needed help. His letters were gravely disturbing, eccentric and arrogant. Blaming me and a whole lot of other common friends to be spies of a corporate giant. How absurd!

I showed the letters to my husband. He looked at them from a doctors point of view. "This boy should be in therapy", he said. I was thinking of measures we could take to try and be of some assistance. He was such a nice person. So young and talented. What happened to him? What caused him so much distress that he had turned into this???

I remembered my fathers advice 'dusryanchya phatkyaat paay ghalu naye'. Literally it means, 'don't needle someone else's rip, it will only make the slit tear more' and maybe reveal the ugly scar.

A friend called in the evening. Call it divine intervention or sheer co incidence, this person knew him too and told me how they had tried to help him. All in vain. This boy is a victim of substance abuse and borders on 'a beautiful mind' situation.

Not wanting to sound missionary I quietly deleted him from my list. He still weighs tonnes on my mind. I am guilty of washing my hands off it.

I do regret that I lost one whole day in all this. One day of my life that I am never getting back. But that is nothing compared to a precious life that is slowing crumbling in another city, all wrapped up in a warped timespace.