Aaheli Bagchi

aaheli.bagchi@gmail.com

NEHA, WE MISS YOU

She was a blooming talent. Just 11. Yet she took her life. Her parents did not allow her to participate in a reality show. Instead, they wanted her to study. `Study, study, study’ is all that most parents want from their children. But do they know their children – who are not just biological accidents? Most parents think they know but do not know, or care to know. This parental ignorance has snuffed out many a life. Good many tender flowers arrive in this world only to be brutalized by their own parents or relatives. Of course, Neha was not one of them. Her only fault was she had talent which she wanted to take to the logical conclusion. She confused virtual reality with reality. To many teens, Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Karisma Kapoor or Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sewak make their reality. But the shocking reality is that we are all chasing illusions most of our lives, and values are seldom imparted to our children because we ourselves don’t have them. On one extreme, suicide bombers are taking their lives only to drag as many as possible with them. On the other, gentle extreme, people like Neha (Sawant) of Dombivli, Mumbai, snuff out their own lives, hoping they could be happy that way. The people of neither extreme realize the value of life, let alone the meaning of life, because we live in the Planet of Apes – materialistic apes, if you prefer.