A bunch of people, with the women dressed in sarees and salwar kameez while the men in white with a sash of saffron, made a dramatic presentation with a bit of song and dance, about how suicide is not the only way out. In connection with World Suicide Prevention Day, the short drama of multiple lives drove home the point about how suicide leaves behind emotional void and distress.
With a simple line, “Hum jeeney marney ka naatak kartey hein (we are making a drama of living and dying),” the play began and then Jyothi, who played the role of sutradhar, introduced the one life after another.
Directed by Tinky Bharadwaj, the first playlet was a ‘kahani pyaar aur mohabbat ki’. It is about two college mates who fall in love and the inevitable happens. The man leaves the woman behind with a promise to come back. But then…
In the very ordinariness of dramatised lives ranging from a brilliant techie from Telangana who cannot speak English, a student who wants to learn dance but whose mother wants her to be an engineer, a man who takes to drink as he is torn between the love for his mother and wife, and an aged man whose children become indifferent to their father; the message against suicide came across strongly.
Sharing her experiences was Sana Iqbal, who drove across the country on a Bullet spreading the message against depression and suicide. “When I first drove from Hyderabad to Gujarat I was not very clear about what I was doing. I thought I will come under the wheels of some vehicle. But once I started meeting people and became busy, I realised the futility of my earlier thoughts,” said Sana Iqbal.
Suicide helpline
The event was staged by Roshni, which runs a suicide helpline in the city with a host of trained volunteers. Roshni can be reached at 6620-2000/2001.
