Editor,
The pathetic road construction by PWD contractors along National Highway 44 which connects Shillong to Jowai onwards speaks volumes of the disgusting practices inherent in the PWD. People curiously remark about the kind of road engineers and monitoring mechanism that the department has. Unfortunately we all know that none of the contractors have any sense about what road construction is all about. It is disgraceful that the PWD Minister who is a contractor has failed to monitor and call for accountability within his own Department, yet we want tourists to visit this state amidst the ‘ rock and roll’ roads that greet them. Perhaps a PIL is the only route for putting the PWD in its place. .
Yours etc…
Dominic S. Wankhar
Shillong -3
Remembering those without Hope!
Editor,
As I was scanning the papers this morning, various news articles on the ‘World Suicide Prevention Day’ caught my attention and since the global topic of ‘suicide’ and ‘awareness’ seem to be trending on the internet as well, I am reminded of a certain personal incident I experienced a few years back. Coming from a personal perspective, as someone who has lost an integral part of one’s life to suicide, reality is painful. I was in my teens when I had to face this bitter reality. They say when a person dies they take a part of you with them but when someone takes their own life away, they rob everything from you. What remains is just hurt, bitterness and guilt, a huge amount of guilt. For someone so young to have taken this gruesome step was unacceptable. For someone so young to be sent to a rehab facility, and yet, commit this step while still under rehabilitation is disheartening. It was baffling for a 19 year old to understand these things and although counsellors have tried to give their reasons, they’ve failed to answer one basic question, “How could someone, anyone, be without HOPE?” I recently came across an article on identifying someone who suffers from ‘Soul Loss’, a concept foreign to me but as I go deep into the subject I’ve come to realise that probably, people with suicidal intentions, or as I would put it, people without HOPE suffer from Soul Loss. Now, ‘Soul Loss’ is defined by the article as a loss of meaning, direction, purpose, a disconnect with one’s soul. It says the soul connects us innately, to our own values and essence and the values and essence of others too. I’ve come to understand that these value systems hold us integrally as a person, they bind elements necessary for our soul to persist, for it to survive, against all odds. Though the article gives its insights on the idea of not treating soul loss with pain medication or treating it as mental illness(as may have been then and still diagnosed today), it also says that this concept is sadly however not applied globally. As someone who has gone through such a terrible episode, I feel there’s so much that needs to be done in suicide prevention and a single-day awareness is not really enough. With suicide and depression rates going up a notch (or two) every year, I think awareness should be part of the educational curriculum. Shouldn’t we be spreading awareness on how to help someone who is showing signs as such? Shouldn’t we counsel those who’ve lost someone on how to cope with such a loss? Shouldn’t we have facilities like a call centre or a care centre to treat such broken souls or to help those on the verge of such reckless actions?! I think it all comes down to one fundamental truth… We cannot treat such people with clinical drugs but we can help them get through it by being there for them. It takes love, compassion and a lot of sacrifice but doesn’t the idea of mending someone’s soul sound amazing? As the world evolves into understanding and hopefully accepting this foreign concept, I do certainly believe that someday, people can acquire such care facilities free of costs wherein they are not kept in isolation, not discriminated, not treated with clinical drugs but treated with 3 vital harmless drugs: Love, Care and Compassion. Perhaps, we are yet to discover that the cure to all this is not Science but LOVE after all.
Yours etc.,
Gladiola Nongrum
Via email