He looked distinctly out of place in that emergency ward, smartly dressed as always in only the finest—from his suit and tie to his polished-to-a-shine shoes. Only that thing around his neck did not belong to my brother; a ghastly green plastic rope, sawed off shabbily at the ends when they brought him down. That and his face, eyes bulging, tongue out and mottled. I did not know how to respond. Instead, I went about dusting his suit and rearranging his arm, which was dangling at an odd angle from the stretcher. The doctors declared him ‘dead on arrival’. Later, when they returned him from the mortuary, they had wrapped him up in sheets and tied him up with ropes.
Did Arijit Lahiri, my beloved Rocky, think of what was to come when he made his decision? Did he know his clothes would be torn off him and his insides poked at by strangers? Did he think about it as he went about organizing the day? When the body is finally consumed by fire, all that you have left are questions. We rehearsed his last day incessantly, picking over it for clues. We heard he walked his dogs, gulped down his breakfast and drove off, cheerfully fixing to meet his wife and her parents for lunch. From colleagues’ accounts, it had been another hard day at the office.
After work, he had stopped to buy the plastic rope he needed and then went on to hang himself from the ceiling fan in the old house they had lived in. His laptop and briefcase were placed neatly on a chair. His wife found him that evening. In retrospect, I was relieved when we took him home that last time, I in the front of the van, him, draped in sheets, at the back. The driver played the radio and I began to accept that it was all over. We were alone then, he and I, not laughing about some silly joke or quarrelling even—just silent.
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Reader's Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Reader's Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE UNBELIEVABLE MR RIPLEY
The creator of Believe It or Not had an insatiable curiosity about strange and astonishing facts
HE OPENED UP THE ARC TIC
\"You don't just sit and wait for adventure to come,\" famed polar explorer Knud Rasmussen liked to explain.\"You go out and make it happen!\"
Discovering Babasaheb
This Dalit history month—which also marks the 134\" birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, we recount four momentous incidents from his life
Lion in the Living Room
Five decades after two young men brought a playful cub into their London home, the tale has touched a whole new generation
The Many Roles of SUNIL DUTT
Through many personal tragedies, this favourite matinee idol finds strength and solace in helping others
AGATHA CHRISTIE MURDER BY THE BOOK
More widely read than any other English writer, she baffled the world with masterly tales of murder and remained something of a mystery herself
THE DAY WE MADE Flying History
Ona sunny September day in 1913, the author set three world records ina homemade flying machine
THE COMMANDO WITH THE TATTOO
Ganesh Dhangde was just six years old when he got lost. Twenty years later, his mother had a visitor
MARILYN: HER MAGIC LINGERS ON
The real Marilyn Monroe was nobody you'd look at twice—unless she wanted you to
I Think, Therefore, I Spam...
...has become the way forward for too many e-mail pests. Here's how I deal with them every single day