This piece has been written by Rickden Bhutia (BA LLB Batch of 2019). The illustration is by Tvisha Vasudevan (BA LLB Batch of 2027).
TW: Death, Suicide
Rickden writes about his batchmate Kanishk Bharti's early death in 2019.
I still remember the last time I saw Kanishk. He had come to my cube one night, wanting to eat dinner together. Having already eaten and having been in the best of moods I just motioned him to sit as I continued to play my game on my laptop while he came, sat down, ate some dinner in silence next to me, got up and left. A week later I got a call in the middle of the class from another friend, telling me he had died.
Oftentimes people treat death as a full stop, however, it is rarely ever so for the people who get left behind. The emotions, the relationships, and the feelings one has about another human being are never simple, especially when you’ve spent considerable time with each other. While in the immediacy of a death the event itself casts a huge shadow on everything - with certain expectations as to how one should act, should look, should grieve, things are never that simple. Those aforementioned emotions don’t just magically disappear, in fact, if anything all those messy emotions can get even messier, with death itself an immense new factor to take into account. Very rarely, if at all do people get the space for them to process it the way they need to. And by the time they get ready to maybe delve into it, enough time has passed that people expect them to move on. But grief doesn’t work that way. Grief is complicated and the way to process it is never universal.
Complicated is the most apt word I can find both for Kanishk himself and the relationship I shared with him. Kanishk was just a guy. A guy who wanted what any of us wanted. Love and affection. Happiness. A misfit just trying to fit in. However, it was hard for him. He was found lacking in the type of social skills that are valued by society and once the label of being is thrust on people, unfairly or otherwise as being someone who’s asocial, or the variety of words we use to describe people who don’t fit in, it becomes exceedingly hard for them to overcome it, especially in a place like NLS with a small population and 5 years to spend together. It's scary how easy it is for people like Kanishk to be forgotten, to be lost in the system. While empathy and compassion are words that are constantly used by people and who tell us how important those qualities are, they are almost universally easier to apply to a stranger than someone you personally know or have been told about by people whose opinions you trust and have built a negative impression about.
After Kanishk passed it was even easier, and while his death was used initially to push a lot of agendas in the immediate aftermath, he was quickly lost in the unending grind of the rigours of academia, save for a couple of articles on the internet which had gotten his name wrong and one under which a man was dutifully advertising his “anti-suicide” ceiling fans, designed to break if enough weight is placed on them.
I have often replayed that night and what I could’ve done to change things. Maybe if I’d said something, or noticed something, he’d still be here. I lived with that guilt for a very long time. I thought of ways of honouring his memory. Lit a chemi (Butter lamp) on his birthday every year since. Put up posts on insta remembering his good parts, doing everything one should do for a friend who’s not here anymore. However, I realized that I was doing the same thing as those articles, defining him in terms of his worst moment and misrepresenting who he really was based on my own guilt and complicated emotions about him. The poem underneath was an attempt by me to come to terms with the totality of who he was and the relationship I shared with him.
I had initially shared this poem with a few close friends and some of them encouraged me to share this publicly. I was initially apprehensive as I thought this was just a narrow recollection of him exclusively from my perspective. One friend mentioned the possibility of some people seeing themselves in those verses, and some, their friend - if nothing else, people will learn to be more mindful about their behaviour towards their peers. Maybe, just maybe, they'll attempt to understand what someone else might be going through. However, I myself harbour no such aspirations in deciding to share this. This is simply me trying to remember someone I shared a relationship with, and for me, that’s enough.
Kanishk was just a guy. But more than that, he was one of us. And he deserves to be remembered for the totality of who he was, not just his worst moment.
I don’t know if I miss you but I wish you were here
My mind is forever confused when thinking of you and I
Was I your friend? your enemy? or just another guy?
Tried to understand you, walk in your shoes for many a mile
But never could gauge your reaction, as likely to respond with scorn as with a smile
Kindness was suspicious to you, hiding sinister motives inside
Often taunting rarely talking, yet opening up about your love of bikes
A twinkle in your eyes as you described every part while giving me a ride
Joyous nights, singing long-forgotten songs, etched vividly in my mind.
Pressing all my buttons, daring me to react, just pushing me around
Yet in my darkest hours, sitting beside me without a sound
Flashes of joy, kindness and love, like a flower blooming from the ground,
Yet quickly torn, taken away, always ready to be let down
Thought I’d finally figured you out, more familiarity over the years
Yet you pulled your final trick, an exit amongst a wave of tears
Tears didn’t start immediately but ultimately they did flow,
a final push against my temerity, my arrogance that I was in the know
Maybe a genius let down once more, a tragedy we couldn’t prevent,
Or maybe all you were was a hurt soul, misunderstood until the end,
Knew a bit, understood less, like your precious bikes without a gear
I don’t know if I miss you, but I wish you were still here.
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