‘Why Goa’s Happy Couple Had to Die’ is a rhetorical question

This Sunday, I picked up the newspaper after many days. I wouldn’t get into why and how I stopped reading newspapers. I just did. Sunday newspapers are usually different from weekdays newspapers so I decided to give this Sunday’s Times of India and Hindustan Times a chance to keep me company while I sipped on my morning tea. And thus I chanced upon the gut wrenching tale in Mumbai Mirror: ‘Why Goa’s Happy Couple Had to Die’

One of the strangest tales ever. It is even more astounding than the story of the couple who killed and butchered someone and then had sex in front of the dead body. That actually was strange from gruesome violence perspective and we have seen and heard more than enough examples of that by now. This is strange in the pure sense of strange, if you know what I mean. And not just the end part where the husband and wife killed themselves but their whole story has a somber Hitchcockian vibe to it. The things that they have been doing like shredding books they have read into pieces and then eventually throwing them away. They started shredding when they realised that their books were being circulated in a public library after they had disposed them off. Slowly getting rid of all the furniture, all the "material" possessions, spending their last few Days at Taj and then methodically taking their lives with a brief suicide note. The newspaper report tells us about the estrangement of boy’s family with the couple who even refused to come for the last rites.

Ofcourse, it defines bizarre but the funny part of it is that at the heart of it, it seems like just another existentialism tale. From whatever the report says, it just sort of seems clear that this is what they always wanted- an escape. I am obviously not here to do any psychoanalysis of the story but just that it has been with me so far. Haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I can almost feel peace and also smugness on the faces of both the husband and wife. Just imagine what they must have spoken about before hanging themselves. Or they may have not spoken at all before their final moments. It is just so mysterious, bizarre and don't get me wrong, but a damn interesting story. I am flummoxed and impressed.

If this was a movie, I would want Stanley Kubrick to direct it. Slowly building the labyrinth and then never revealing if there was ever any purpose to the tale at all. Taking me closer and closer to the protagonists' minds and then throwing me off just when I thought I was close enough to figure something out. I would want the movie to put a sense of calm in me and at the same time make me want to pull my hair out.

PS: Must read the whole report in Mumbai Mirror. Its an excellent news report, from a journalistic point of view too.