Date: 04/02/2010
Today I got this diary from my LIC agent. I never really wrote diary before. I am a constable for god sake. I am not supposed to be poetic. But 20 years of service in the filth of my city has sure left me with lot to tell.
In my life I have seen this city weep. I have seen it fall. I have seen my city decay. But still not for one day I was not amused by it. Few incidents do leave a mark on you.
I distinctly remember few years back I went to his flat. The distinct smell of rot told me waited for me inside. He lay reclining on the wall. A small puddle of dried blood around his left hand which was carefully placed away from himself, and an unfinished cigarette bud on his lap.
In the glow of the morning sun and the buzz of the flies over him, I saw a distinct satisfaction on his face. A smirk that intrigued me.
And on the nearby table a neatly folded piece of paper. A letter.
Hello,
I am Abani Chatterjee, BA English Honrs. If you are the first person reading this letter I assume you are from police or medical attendant. So let me clarify no one forced me into this. My regret will be that I have no one to stop me from doing this.
I expect this letter to lie trapped between the pages of my death certificate and reports in my closed dusty FIR file. But if possible after the investigation is over, tear it up and throw it in any drain nearby, I want me to flow around Calcutta.
I am Abani Chatterjee and this is my story. If you are busy investigating my case I suggest you stop reading here because I assure you I have nothing more important to disclose here on.
Have you ever noticed the yellow light in a traffic signal? Maybe you miss it most of the time. I have always been that yellow light, not the red which everyone hates and avoids neither the green to bring smile and hope on those sweat ridden faces of hurry. But the yellow, often missed in the hustle of reigniting your engine and embarking on your journey.
Only people who were ever happy about me were my parents. But again they were happy about everything. I never saw them fight, or love. They never shouted at each other. For days they even forget to talk with each other. They always agreed on every step of life.
They never scolded me on my pathetic report cards; slowly they even forgot to ask for them. Then I realised that they were not happy, they were plain indifferent, to me and to each other. They were what I was to be in future.
I was never a good talker. So friends were something I never had. I grew up with that small abandoned water bottle in the back of our class. We silently used to stare at each other and share our boring little lives.
I never remember crying. Crying is for weak they say. Crying is for human I say. No one taught me feelings; no one gave me hope, so disappointment never visited me.
I remember once I pee-ed in my pants. And how dumbly I went to others and showed them my wet pants so they could laugh at me make fun and maybe talk with me.
I am abani Chatterjee and I never had my picture on the school yearbook.
She is happily married now. Once she said she will always be with me. I guess she forgot. Sadly forgetting is bit hard for me.
Those 2 years with her was when life forgot to be miserable with me.
She was afraid to hold my hand in college. She said she hated displaying affection, I knew she was embarrassed of me. I smirked and hid myself to meet her in the back lanes of college square where we had those thick glasses of cheap lassi.
She loved my broken English poems that rhymed too much. I knew they were pathetic. But I still loved to see the pity in her eyes for me when I read in the soft sun of Maidan.
Pity looks similar to love and I was happy.
She stammered a lot the day she said that she wants to be single. I knew she was in love with someone else, and pity can never win over love. So I lost.
I am Abani Chatterjee and I have only kissed the soft skin of my wrist in the darkness of my room.
I tried, trust me; I tried hard to live, to love. I have 37 chat friends whose real name I don’t know. But they are nice, they don’t find me boring, they listen to whatever I say and reply with link of varied porn sites. It’s funny how sometime a porn site is solution to all your problems.
I am Abani Chatterjee and I masturbate 4 times a day.
To tell you the truth being alone is not that harsh as it sounds. In this overflowing city of mine, loneliness is a bliss I suppose. But slowly this voidness seeped into me. Even so that I was an intruder to my own privacy.
I have spent 22 years of my life with me, and seriously I am bored of myself.
I am bored of the fact that on my birthday only wish i get is a computer generated SMS from my bank.
Surely I don’t approve of suicide. That’s what losers do isn’t it? But if someday you realise that throughout your life you have been nothing better than a loser, what will you do?
All I can say that I have no guilt in my life; I am just a bad outcome of the game of probability. But life has stopped to excite me.
I am Abani Chatterjee and this is when I say Goodbye.
PS: My apologies to my neighbour, hope they don’t have to deal with the rotten smell of my decayed self for long.
Apperently Kolkata Police did not required a letter to make the assessment. The case was soon closed. But I fell in love with Abani. Today I freed him to flow around his city. Hope he is happy!!
(*** Its not a fiction I suppose...Maybe it is!!...point is i wanted to tell something about myself and apparently I needed a character to hide behind...so be it!! Question is if its my life, shouldn't the choice of death be mine too?? wat u think!!)
"It was a lie when they smiled
And said, “you won’t feel a thing”"
-Disenchanted,My Chemical Romance
And said, “you won’t feel a thing”"
-Disenchanted,My Chemical Romance