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That which is mine today, was someone else’s yesterday;
And shall become another’s day after,
Change is the only rule of the world;
But change should be according to rule and in the right manner.
The first few lines of Kalikho Pul’s suicide note give away the humble beginnings of the late Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister. What it also gives away is the reason that made him the man that he was.
Pul, who lost both his parents as he turned six, expresses a deep sense of deprivation in his letter. “I have no one I can call my own. I have always been deprived of the love of parents and family,” he wrote on 8 August 2016, one day before he committed suicide.
The tone of Pul’s words also betrays an innate emotion of loneliness, one that he felt not only personally, but also politically.
The letter, explosive in nature owing to the incriminating evidence of the corruption of judicial luminaries, cannot be read in isolation. It’s laced with profound philosophical undertones, expressed quite explicitly in places.
“I learnt to face the challenges of life from childhood itself, be it for bread or for my rights. As a child I walked miles to collect firewood from the forest for one meal. Trapped in poverty and helplessness I have laboured as a carpenter for a daily wage of Rs 1.50, earning Rs 45 per month,” he reveals.
His carpentry tools, the reminders of his early struggle, were one of Pul’s priced possession till his last day.
Pul’s personna as carrying a touch of melancholy is not difficult to gauge from his letter. What one might not find out is that he was also a brilliant student.
“During his formative years, Pul would reach school quite early. He would be softly admonished by the headmaster, ‘Kalikho, you have come early!’,” Dhiraj Sinha, one of his schoolmates wrote for The Wire. The words of his headmaster or that of his schoolmate do not reveal the fact that Pul could not attend regular school in his childhood days.
Working his way up as a contractor, Pul managed to earn enough to afford a gypsy and four trucks by the time he reached class 12. By the time he was in college, the humble man had his “own business, own conveyance, servants and also a small RCC (reinforced cement concrete) house with three rooms.”
The last few paragraphs of Pul’s letter exposes a sense of uneasiness with the state of affairs in the country.
It also lays bare the state of his mind.
“I do not fear anyone. I am not weak and I do not consider this as an act of surrender on my part.”
In a reclusive cosmic corner somewhere, Pul’s words continue to reverberate, six months after he breathed his last.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)