Analyzing People

I was returning home from school. Throwing my bag carelessly, I went to my friend Jane's house as she was absent in school today.

I was walking in the streets thinking how I would tell the things that had happened in school that day. It had been the worst day in school. I was bored as hell and angry with Jane because she did not tell me anything. Otherwise, we always planned our absenteeism to do something fun!

When I meet her, I will tell her how angry I am first, then I will say about all the fun things I did in her absence just to make her a little jealous. I will tell her how Mandel's shoes flied up in the sky when he tried to kick a football in the recess. How people had laughed and captured it in their mobile phones. Today was another day when the sneaking of the mobile phones was successful! (Leaving the part that the shoe landed on me.)

I was much excited thinking of all the things I would share to her but all my excitement was soon to fade.

I was about to reach her house when from distant, I saw people hovering at the door blocking the entrance. My heart skipped a beat. As I went running, I could hear the cries fill my ears. I had no strength of going inside . So I asked a person outside what had caused their occurance.

Someone in the crowd said, "Jane has committed suicide." My heart sank at first. Then I thought it might not be true. I mentioned the fact almost always that she must have been the daughter of Sherlock Holmes if she was a character of a story!

After all, how can Sherlockey leave Johny Watson? (Our way of converting names into bold women characters.) NEVER! At least not after all these years of happy memories with no exact reason that I could possibly think of!

I went in to check out. I could not believe the people because she was such a brave person and she had this wonderful love for life which attracted me to be her friend in the first place. She had a habit of analyzing people carefully. I admired her for all the ways she could find out to solve a problem and surprisingly in the most perfect way possible!

"Suicide, not an option for Jane," I thought.

However, I was proved wrong. There I saw Jane's body hanging on the ceiling fan tied by a loose loop of her favorite pashmina shawl.

People were all gathered in the room. It even gave space for journalists. There was a murmur in the crowd when one journalist stepped ahead and asked, "Why do you think this unfortunate incident took place?"

I could hear people reply, "She had bad relations with her family members."

Being her best friend, I always knew that Jane's mom and dad were pretty liberal towards her. For a fact, they even loved me equally. You can say that I was one of their family member! At least I thought so. They knew that Jane was special and Jane reciprocated their love by adding high respect to it.

Some said, "She might have failed her exams. She was a spoiled brat."

Jane was always an average student in school because she was never attracted by numbers. Though, I always thought that she would excel if she was. She always said that what is inside the head is all that matters.

Others commented, "She must have done something restricted and socially unacceptable. She was given much freedom than required."

To this, I remembered how Jane had stopped me once from getting influenced by peer pressure. She had explained to me that day that we should always try to be the opposite of what people believe. Bad influence change life, people say. However, you have to also understand that good influence can do wonders too. Try to be the latter one she had said.

Many viewed her death was because of her habits of smoking or taking drugs which in fact she never did.

These replies made Jane's parents devastated. Those ungrateful people had made Jane's death a source of being famous.

As the journalist approached me to ask the same question with keen interest, she queried, "You look as if you knew her very well. What do you have to say about this?"

I literally found my mouth go dry. I couldn't find any reason that had caused her to give up on life. I found it really depressing how her death was highlighted in social media. As I was replying, "Jane had nothing bad associated to her. In fact she had very keen interest in analyzing people. I find it impossible to explain..."

"Oh Tiara!" interrupted a voice from the crowd. People started screaming all of a sudden. I was familiar with the particular voice. Who else could it be?

I looked back to view my beloved friend untie the loose loop and step down. I was ecstatic to see that annoying half of mine. Soon, this happiness turned to anger. What a foolish idea she had in mind!

She explained, "I just wanted to see how high your opinions are about me. Thank you for letting me know who are close. So the reasons you described, save your children from these. Never let any depression take over the beauty of life."

I had the mixed thinkings of how stupid my friend was to have done such a big drama and I was proud at the same time for the successful social experiment she conducted.

Soon, there came a voice in the crowd, "We are proud of you, Jane. We all knew you wouldn't do a thing like this. You are such a wonderful person."

Everybody agreed to this thought.

I admit I was not surprised to view the irony. I had a vicious smile on my face. Perhaps, Jane's experiment of analyzing people had now completed.