the case of sanggita, a young indian mother, who commit suicide, dragging her children along, hogged the limelight lately.

the speculation was that she imitated the suicide scene from some hindu movie she watched. as such, after her suicide, we suddenly heard of call from deputy women, family and community minister g. palanivel who requested the censorship board to cut out suicide scenes in hinduhindi/tamil movies. this call of him was reported in the BBC too, who mentioned about tamil poverty.

though it may be true that she imitated the suicide scene from a movie, i feel that calling for a censor of suicide scenes in movies was a knee-jerk reaction. how is a movie going to be effective if the scene (which might be critical to the story-line) is cut off? then we also have movies with violent scenes like murderscenes – are we going to call for a censor to those killing and fighting scenes too, in case people, especially youngsters imitate the scenes? what about superman flying around? why didn’t ban the movie, in case a child imitate superman to fly?

i don’t know what drove sanggita to suicide, though a letter written by her had been found, it did not reveal much. i could try to understand how desperate she was and how she felt that she could no longer bear living but what i don’t understand is why should she let her children die too? yes, we could say that she felt there would be nobody to take care of her children if she is gone, so if she wants to die, better take the children along. that to me is very selfish.i remember another case of this chinese man who after a quarrel with his wife, shot himself… but not before he shot his 2 (or was it 3) children too.

i really get angry when i heard of adults committing suicide and killing the children. even all my friends say so too – “if you want to die, you go and die lah, why you let your children die too?”.

i don’t know. maybe some of you would say it is not right for me to judge or question that suicide person why s/he wants to take along others with her/him to the other world. well yes and no. on one hand i might understand why s/he wants to kill herself/himself along with her/his children but on the other hand i feel if she really love the children, s/he should not let the children die.

still on the subject of suicide, remember once i attended a ’suicide intervention’ talk and learned quite a lot of interesting things – how to spot a suicidal person and all that. (you can read my report here). one interesting point is just before the talk begins when the participants (about 60) were given a short questionnaire to answer. in the Q of who will you turn to if you are suicidal, can you believe it that a very small percantage mentioned family. majority of them mentioned friends. as to the Q of have you at one time or other ever consider suicide, alarmingly nearly 50% of them replied in the affirmative!

ok something not so serious now… still on the subject of killing onself.

well… i don’t feel suicidal but at times when i was very depressed, er… i did thought if i want to kill myself, how should i do it? and that’s when the movies/tv shows comes in. yes, true, we will tend to imitate what we see… so it is thanks to the movies, that gave me ideas. haha.

which is the most quick, easy and painless way i wonder? i would have thought using a pointing to the head and shoot is the most quick and painless way… but then where on earth can i get hold of a gun? actually jumping down from a high building is also a quick way but there is a small chance the jump might not killed whereas holding a gun to your head guarantee you die at once. jumping into the sea is totally out from my mind since i know it would be terrible to struggle when swallowing water. i’m afaid of water lah! want to learn swimming also no courage to really let go to learn. what about taking pills? that is also… painless?… way… just go to sleep and never wake up.

oops. methink i had better stop before i got carried away and someone say that my blog should be banned since, like the movies, i’m giving ideas to people how to kill themselves. sorry ah.

NOTE: picture above was taken from soon.org, which incidentally has a write-up on ‘five reasons NOT to kill yourself’ and also how to seek help. yes, boys and girls, i must stressed here, suicide is wrong. don’t ever attempt it. seek help if you are depressed. and to those who wants to learn to spot a suicidal person, remember to read again my write-up.