Whiskey And Suicide: And other stories

Whiskey and Suicide deals with the themes of self actualization, mid-life crisis, identity in modern urban India. The protagonists range from people migrating from cities to small towns for peace of mind to a girl who kills her father after not being able to live with the pain of his alcoholism. It empathizes with familiar characters stuck in a routine, wanting to make a substantial change to their life. The protagonists reminisce the memories of a cheery past, mourn the death of a friend and wonder about self actualization. Some Excerpts""Why do people write?", she asked Ravi. Ravi looked up from his book and gave a mysterious smile. "Writing is such a lonely profession. Very few writers even make any money. In spite of the odds, the writers persist. They do day jobs just to continue writing on the side. They toil in the early mornings and midnight and write thou-sands of words about imaginary stuff that no one even would ever read. What makes them do so?". Ananya was looking serious and pained."A lot of things had happened in last two or three years. Actually, many things happen every day, he thought. We just do not notice them. Small things combine to give rise to big changes and before we know the world as we knew it not longer exists. There are many ways peo-ple face the change. Some people live in the past ignoring the changes. Some people live in the future wishing things would change. Living in present is the most difficult thing that is preached by the philosophers. It has almost become a cliche, he thought."""But none of use has changed as much as Prashant has", Nasir said out of the blue. Ruturaj thought about that assertion. Every one of them had certainly become more oriented towards the societal goal of money, com-fort, career than they were in those days. Was it fair to say that one of them was more devoted to those goals than others? Ruturaj did not have an answer really. How do you even start comparing such a subjective thing? ""Go join some Ashram and become a yogi? Or sit at home with a ganja joint and listen to Floyd the whole day? Or become a deep-sea driver like that stupid babe in that movie? These are all fleeting thoughts dude, caused by extreme comfort and a lot of money. ""He remembered the day when he woke up completely confused and partly exotic. Life did not mean much to him on that day, but he was excited to be alive. Life seemed to sing through him, through his body and it made weird noises. It suddenly seemed like a brand-new day with the same ingredients. What was new was his outlook towards life and the harmony of novelty that suddenly played all the instruments in quiet contemplation. Here it was, unan-nounced and harmless. Life itself. Life it was no doubt, but it was unrecognizable and harmonious. He could look at it with dispassion, but life seemed to make him realize that he was not alone. The whole humanity was in it. Was that what Dylan meant when he denied the responsibility of individual subjectivity in songwriting? Did he mean that we carry everyone with us, all the time? And does it also mean that we are still unique? He could not understand this contradiction however much he thought about it. Maybe it is not something that you can understand. It is something that you live with but not understand. Life would be flowing in regions unknown without you having to look at it. "Modern India is a complex place with the variety of demographics ranging from the multi billionaires to people who are not able to get a day's meal. The financial liberalization and the IT revolution has created a middle class that is ambitious both in economic aims and spiritual aims. Whiskey and Suicide is empathetic without being condescending.