Who would've thought

that Aa would commit suicide. Was my first reaction when Sa told me that a school mate of mine recently passed away. I did not know Aa well at all, she was the coolest girl of my school. Good looking, fashionable and someone all of us had a crush on. I still remember everyone discussing a dress she wore on one of her birthdays (a white churidar with see through sleeves) which was a scandal back then (honestly, we were so repressed!) but Aa was someone who defined cool quotient and whom everyone wanted to be or be with.

My own interaction was restricted to a polite nod or a smile whenever our paths crossed in the corridors. But, over the years whenever conversation veered around school, Aa was a part of it because you wanted to know what she was upto, what she was doing and what was going on with her. That’s the trouble with benchmarks of childhood, you never out grow them, you never can.

So, when news came in that she committed suicide leaving behind a two year old son, I was thinking…what makes people so despondent that they think that the only way out is death? How could someone who had the proverbial everything be reduced to such a state? Looking back, I see a bright young girl who had the world at her feet and knew it. It’s astonishing how things come full circle. The whole incident reinforces my belief that what you see isn’t always the truth.

The tragedy brings to fore the simple truth that tomorrow is unseen and how life can come to a standstill in the turn of a second. There was a girl who, everyone thought was going to reach the stars, little did we know that she would become one of them.

My thoughts go out to her family and to Aa, who will forever remain the most talked about girl in the batch of 2000.