phoenixrizes.blogspot.com

As bloggers all around the world celebrated the first anniversary of his independence he looked back at the empty blogger window trying to surmise the changes his life had gone through. He recalled the days when he had taken his first fledgling steps as a medical student overjoyed at having gotten into one of his dream med schools. He recalled the days of getting bullied by his erstwhile seniors and now best friends. He recalled how he had sat up late nights waiting for the night mess to open up during exams dying to grab that cup of tea in the Delhi winters. He recalled how he had warmed to the first rays of the sun in the courtyard of the hostel. Those had been good times where he had stepped out of the shadows of his overachieving siblings and found his own voice in this world. It was sometime during those days when a combination of spare time and unlimited internet at his hostel had led him to open his own blog. The blog was an autobiographical diary of his life lived surrogately by this guy called Phoenix. He always had a knack of writing which was lost somewhere during his teenaged years buried under the weight of his medical ambitions. He wrote about his life, his daily routines lacing it with dollops of humor giving people the lowdown on life's fundaes at the same time. The blog initially caught on amongst his friends who loved the inside scoops of one their closest friend's life. They said his style was fresh and vibrant and they liked it because they always felt a real connection with the writer. Soon the blog caught on with friends of his friends and their friends till it caught on a life of its own. Soon it became quite a rage in Delhi as people discussed, argued, debated, hated and fell in love with every single word written out by him. He became the voice of the youth who began identifying with him as he became the faceless darling of thousands of people. He could never convince himself totally that he didn’t enjoy all the attention but it was sometime during these days that he noticed that his health began to suffer. His health about which he mentioned about far and between on his blog became a subject of media speculation and it was only after extensive checkups that he was diagnosed with AIDS. His life fell ripped apart around him as he struggled to come to terms with this harsh truth. They gave him 18 months at the maximum before he would succumb to the inevitable truth. Being a public figure made it even worse as he had a tough time at his college due to the stigma attached with the disease and soon enough he was made to quit. That was the last straw and even though love and sympathy continued to pour in through his thousands and thousands of readers he made a public announcement that he remembered as clearly as the day he had typed it out on his blog. He announced that he didn’t want to go out crawling out of this world that had given him so much. He said he would live his life to the fullest for one whole year and then exactly a year after then with the support of his relatives and friends take his life with the aid of an injection. This announcement had been followed by a pent up media frenzy and channels all across the world discussed this unprecedented announcement by this voice that had been heard by millions around the world and reopened the age old debate about euthanasia. The government was riled up too in this matter as many debates and public interest litigations requesting thwarting any such suicide attempt. The local police under orders soon issued an arrest warrant on his name so that he could be protected from attempted any such thing and he was asked to be put into protective custody. This order was again followed by outrage by all the fans of his blog who asked him to be left alone saying it wasn’t fair for a dying man to be meted out such treatment. He had however kind of anticipated such a step by the authorities and had with the help of his friends managed to escape to an undisclosed destination in Europe. As he had lived his life in hiding for the past one year he had done whatever his heart had desired while still logging all these details onto his blog. And that is how he had retained his connection with all his readers who gave him their whole hearted support and some so far as came forward with financial support to fund his stay in Europe. But al this time away from home he had had plenty of time to think and he slowly had realized that his public announcement had just been a knee jerk reaction to the anger he had built up due to the shock and his helplessness at the situation. He had acknowledged that this past one year had been the best time of life and he had realized how much he wanted to live everyday left of his life till he had no more. He announced on his blog that he was no longer interested in ending his life; instead he said he wanted to go back to a country which he had called home for all these years. This announcement was met by varied reaction, some were happy he had decided to live on with the gift of life, some said he was a big cheat and had been perpetrating a fraud at the behest of some blogging company for free hits while others simply braced themselves for welcoming him back to India. He smiled content at this outpouring of love; he smiled because the phoenix has once again risen from its ashes.

P.S. The seed for this story was sown by Saggistica a while back on the comments tab of one of my posts, thank you