................

I don't know what to say or do right now. Mama just called and informed me that someone we knew closely committed suicide yesterday. A lot of people are saying it's not surprising since she did have a history of severe mental illness, but I think that's a terribly insensitive thing to say - When someone takes their own life, it's always a shock. So here I am at work, jittery and teary, and it's not because I knew her intimately, but because I'm wondering how her daughter will cope. Sakshi's has gone through a lot due to her mother's illness, and now that little girl has to s....

I don't even think words can do justice to this.

And then there's the Mid-Day report: http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2005/august/116830.htm

It makes me so angry, I want to write to the newspaper and lambast them for such irresponsible, callous reporting. The hard copy of the newspaper has a picture of the window in question, and of the blood-stains on the ground that she left behind.

Also, who gives a fuck about the Bollywood personalities that live in the building when a daughter has lost her mother, a mother has lost her daughter, a husband has lost his wife, sisters have lost their baby sister, under the most horrific circumstances? How is that even remotely relevant? How does it matter that she was disliked by the people in the building for being "extremely sarcastic and unco-operative?" Did it perhaps occur to the journalist amid his fruitful quest for sensationalism that perhaps these were symptoms of her detoriating mental health, her struggle to fight against an insiduous illness that had been consuming her for years? Did he bother to report that when all else failed, she was subjected to electro-shock therapy which worsened her condition further? There is such a stigma against mental illnesses in this country, and it's garbage like this that perpetuates and worsens the situation.

God, I feel so sick about this whole thing.