Blog@GraceJunction

Hey Shridhar!

Sorry I did not get any reply from your personal mail id and did not have any contact numbers to get in touch with you for these last two years. Heard that you are doing well in life, that you joined an IT major and are now settled in the U.S. Ravi gave me the news when I was chatting with him. You are the only guy who has got settled so fast, but you deserve it.

It has been two desperate years for me, hunting jobs and making ends meet has been a Herculean task. Natasha and I soon moved in to another apartment after our graduations, she has landed a job in a bank and I am still languishing in a call centre, the same old routines, only thing that has changed is that now I am a floor manager. The BPO’s have been hit hard with the fall in number of clients due to the American slowdown. Pressures to keep our jobs are increasing and my medical bills are not likely to come down any time soon.

Yes medical bills! I was first diagnosed with drug addiction and sent to a rehab to get me back. Things worked out for some time, but my continuous failures and resulting addiction to drugs and alcohol were straining my relationship with Natasha. Soon her parents arrived and wanted her to call off this relationship. Though she tried to carry on, her career was looking up and her parent’s were adamant on calling off this live in relationship. She is gone.

I remembered you that day. You were the only ‘good guy’ in our gang. You always used to tell me not to get in to a relationship in which we were not committed. Do you still remember the night when you finally shared the needle with all of us? Yes, the day when you had a terrible fight with your father. I had never seen you so angry. Although you used to hang around with us at the Chunky’s corner, you were always the first one to make it home on time before your dad’s temperature soared. But that day was different, ‘you looked furious’ would be an understatement. That day, you just grabbed the cigarette from my hands and took the first puff of your life, you seemed to be choking to death. You looked like a fish out of the pond.

Then we went to my room and you were flabbergasted looking at the state of affairs. Those raunchy posters, littered floor, unkept wardrobes, beer bottles and yes, the needles. I still remember telling you, that you have always been a ‘mama’s boy’, and that day it brought out the monster in you. I was newly introduced to drugs and all of us were enjoying the best time of our lives, that day you joined us in the revelry. We put on the loudest music, served the best food and we all were on a high. You took that needle and didn’t know what to do with it. We guys helped you put that drug in to your clean blood. The things that followed have become part of the folklore.

That day we were four of us, but unfortunately we both are now the only survivors. The other two had contracted AIDS some four years back and to my shock they passed away at a local hospital a week back. Their bodies lay like dogs, in that open ward at the hospital, nobody except the flies going near them.

Well, I got myself tested two days back and the report is ……………… I am suffering because of my own faults but you??

I didn’t know one night of madness will come to haunt us this way. I never believed in God, but if HE is there today, I want HIM to spare your life! Tears wet my clothes as I write this. Life so precious but wasted in the spur of the moment!

Rajesh.

Tags: Aids, Drug Abuse, Drugs, HIV

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Addictions, Articles, Letters, Navin, Pre-marital sex, Purpose of Life, Relationships, Society, Stress, Troubles & Problems, Youth Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.