Why did Kevin Carter commit suicide? What did I learn?
I remember, I was a kid then. Can’t exactly remember my age but was kid enough to be popular as “sensitive Stafan”. My eyes would be filled with tears if exposed to things which when I look back today seems like silly. Well it’s a common phenomenon when we grow up right?
So during a day in one of such days, I saw a documentary on Kevin Carter, a photograph that he took, and why he committed suicide? I was watching that documentary with my Popa, and immediately after it I walked out of the room. I just can’t figure out what I should do then.
I went inside my room, locked the doors. Years went by and in 2011, I discovered what I did was phenomenal and I learned the most important lesson in my life:
“The best creation of a man / woman happens when he / she is in immense pleasure or in intense pain.”
The Documentary
You may be wondering what sort of documentary was it exactly or what I did that I learned the most important lesson in my life.
Kevin Carter was a photographer. He won Pulitzer prize for this photograph, which I am sure most of you must have seen at least once in life.
He discovered that the kid lying with her face in the soil died of hunger and obviously the vulture waiting for that death to happen had consumed the body as food.
In a perfect world, that’s not how the food cycle works right? Well Sudan, at that point of time, did not understand perfect world. But Kevin could have saved the kid instead of capturing the photograph which would later become his career defining work. He became depressed for this fact and eventually committed suicide.
Tragic event right? Imagine what would happen if such an event is narrated to a kid who was too sensitive and lived in a perfect world.
Intense pain
I felt helpless, sad, weak. After all what can I do? I can decide not to waste my food from that day on. But my heart pounded to do something much more visible, meaningful. I took a paper and wrote lines. I tried to put the emotions of that kid in paper. I called it “Me and My now”.
I never wrote creatively before. I just wanted to express my pain. Art is the best channel for that. And the outcome is also art, which was in my case a poem. I could give a tune to it. The lines and the tune were bit unorthodox, and it became a song.
In 2011, I asked one of my friends to sing it in College. It was a hit. In 2013, I sung it in my B-School with the help of my friends, who made a simple video and helped with guitar. It was a hit too.
You can listen to the song here
See the Irony
I used story of a brother and and an unfortunate sister to portray my skill. I am not different from Kevin Carter. That’s the misfortune of Art. It is a channel for expression. The art would become the center of attraction. Characters will short live. That’s not true right?
Art is a channel for expression. Artists get people applaud for the art, great artists make the characters immortal. That’s how it should be.
Remember the kid. She is no more. But that memory of the kid should be recalled every time we think of buying or making food.
Have the food just sufficient for you in the plate.
I don’t know why I was born to parents who could give me food and I am sure that kid too didn’t have the choice of not to be born in Sudan at that point of time.
Most of the determining factors of our life, that influence what we would become in future is beyond our control and was stamped upon us without choice. Nobody knows why.
Be grateful, cherish life. I believe that it naturally becomes my responsibility to do things in life that matter to such unfortunate brothers and sisters in a positive way. Because I am human. What are you?
