For You, Ivan

"Every year we read in newspapers that millions of teenagers are becoming addicted to substance abuse, mainly drugs. They feel curious at the beginning, or they take them as a stress-buster, to tackle peer pressure. There are numerous situations in which an innocent boy or girl starts taking drugs, and eventually becomes addicted to it. Most of them lose their life at a tender age, having been overdosed. But if parents, siblings, friends, family and especially, a loving hand holds their hand in the dark to bring back them to light, their life can be saved at the right moment. Sometimes, only sending them to the rehabilitation center can’t help them out. They need personal mentoring. If we stretch out our arm to embrace them with a warm hug of love, if we hear the pain their heart bears, if we assure them that we are there for you, we can make them realize the importance of life.That this is not the end of their life. And this touch of love makes them alive once again. The colours of dusk are only messengers of dawn. When the Sun sets behind the hill it leaves us with a promise of a new sunrise, a new day", Vidhya paused. She turned to the photograph of Ivan, and smiled. She felt that Ivan was smiling at her too. She continued, "This is a story of holding someone’s hand to bring him back to life again…And then, to dedicate this life to this holy mission….to hold the hands of millions."

After the speech she left the seminar room. She came to the balcony, and asked the sky, “Where are you, Ivan?”

Ivan, the brother of Vidhya died of drug overdose at the age of eighteen. Vidhya was also eighteen then.They had given their 12^th board exam one week prior to that incident, and she was preparing for her upcoming dance contest in which she had to participate 2 days later. The contest was to be held in a neighbouring town. She went to her dance guru’s house, and stayed there for that night as it was too late to return home that night. She returned home the next morning. When she went to Ivan’s room to wake him up so that they could have their breakfast together, she found him sleeping on his bed. She tried to wake him up, calling his name again and again, but he didn’t reply or move. Scared, she pushed him. She called her parents too. But finally, Ivan was found dead. He died in his sleep as a result of drug overdose. Last night when Vidhya stayed over at her guru’s house for the sake of dance, Ivan succumbed to death.

Ivan was an excellent painter. On his deathbed Vidhya found his drawing book opened on the table. There was an unfinished painting of a garden. A garden where a beautiful butterfly was playing and a little boy was chasing the butterfly. Ivan wanted to draw something more in his painting, because there was a scratch of a blue colour below the butterfly. The colour palette was full of colours, the bottles of the colours were open. The brush was kept beside the copy. As if he wanted to put something more in his painting, he wanted to tell us something that he couldn’t say before. Nobody else understood the painting but Vidhya knew. Ivan was telling Vidhya to hold his hand on the darkness. He wanted to come back to life again. But Vidhya couldn’t hold his hand, and he went to the darkest of the darkness leaving Vidhya alone forever. Her mother became mute after that day. She went dumb with grief and kept searching for Ivan all the time. When she ended up finding nobody, she started weeping silently, without saying a single word.

This incident affected Vidhya’s life too. She left dancing. She blamed her dance for which she couldn’t hear Ivan for the last time when he called her. So she decided never to dance again in her life. That fateful night, had she not stayed in her guru’s house, she would had stayed with Ivan. She could have helped Ivan. He would never have left her alone in this way. She blamed her dance for everything that happened, and promised herself never to dance again. She became indifferent to everyone and shut herself up in her room. After the result of the board exam was out, she decided to go to the new city as the town had become suffocating to her. She left her town and moved to a metro city to pursue a course in engineering.

However, she then decided to do something more than being an Engineer. Something much bigger than her career, a holy mission of light. On the day of the convocation ceremony in her college, she told everyone that the last painting Ivan wanted to draw was the painting of ‘Life’. He wanted to bring back the light of life holding her sister’s hand. Unable to understand him, she didn’t pay heed to his words. And thus, she never came to know of his pain. However now she wants to hold the hand of many Ivans. She is willing to devote her life to this mission. Through this mission she would like to bring millions of Ivans back to life again. Oh yes, she apologized to her dance guru for blaming her dance for being the reason of Ivan’s death. She will dance again, forever, she declares. She is now sure that she can’t breathe without dancing. Saying this she leaves the stage.

That night Vidhya saw a dream. A boy was playing in a garden full of flowers. He was chasing a butterfly but unable to catch it. Vidhya went there and stopped him. The boy turned, it’s Ivan. He smiled at her and called her. Vidhya went to him and held his hand. They see the sky, thousands of colours were paying hide and seek with them. They keep watching the colours of the dusk holding each other’s hand.

The dream ends, so does the night. The first sun rays light up Vidhya’s face. She wakes up from sleep, leaves the bed, and comes to the balcony. She sees the rising Sun at dawn, and says that the story is not over as yet, it’s just the beginning.