A Driver's Suicide

Such things always seem to happen when I am not around. The week before, on Monday afternoon, when I was down with fever at home I got a call from my boss. He told me cryptically that our jeep driver had committed suicide early in the morning. He took pesticide and died in a van in the office premises my boss told me. He did not say anymore but told me the news was breaking on television. When I switched it on I was more shocked than surprised because one of the channels said harassment by officials was one of the reasons for the driver’s suicide. I happened to be one of the officers working there!

Then the phone rang non-stop. One of my assistants filled me with the details. It seems the driver had left two suicide notes. The discovery of the body itself was an event he told me. The driver was supposed to report early in the morning to take a group of farmers to Hyderabad. So my assistant too had reached the office in the morning and was desperately trying to reach the driver on his cell phone. It was getting late and the farmers were beginning to get restive. When my assistant had left the office to find out, one of the farmers called him on phone to say that there was a body in the van parked inside the office premises. The driver lay on the last seat, frothing at the mouth. He had kept two suicide notes in his pocket.

Finally, it emerged that the driver had blamed an officer who had worked in the office more than a year ago, for driving him to suicide. When I reached my office five days later I got a different picture. The driver was not well, he had problems at home and was depressed. It was quite apparent that he was depressed because all day he would sit in the van and stare out into space. Once or twice I had tried to talk with him but he would give only monosyllabic replies. But now after his suicide I could realize what he would have been thinking of.

What saddened me was the role of the officer in the suicide. He had left almost a year ago but what he did the driver could not forget. I cannot write here how he affected the driver’s life but it made me angry. I could not believe that people could stoop to such levels. It was a sordid story not worth recounting here.