Jaded Stocks

There is one news story that I will never forget in this lifetime. It is about a man named Avijit Sarkar. He was the first person to be killed by the TMC after winning the 2021 West Bengal Vidhan Sabha election. Minutes before his gruesome murder, Avijit Sarkar took to Facebook to narrate that he had been surrounded by a mob of TMC workers. He did not know what was written in his destiny on that fateful night. Look at the date - 2nd May 2021. This was the last time Avijit posted on Facebook. In the following weeks, TMC workers killed a dozen more people as part of a coordinated wave of political violence. But the story of Avijit Sarkar never left my mind. Avijit was holding a puppy in his hand and narrating his ordeal. At that point, he did not know that he would be killed. I was tasked to translate his dying testimony from Bangla to English so that non-Bengalis can know his story. Bangla is my mother tongue, and every word he spoke captivated the anxiety that a man experiences when his life is in danger. While writing the news report, I broke down several times because I knew what happened after the video ended. It was a traumatic experience. Death has always been a triggering subject for me. The fact that I was new to this industry and that I was already suffering from mental health issues made it worse. It has been 5 years since that incident. Tears have dried up, but not the rage that continues to stir inside me. This is why I have taken a pledge. As long as I am alive, I will make sure that the story of Avijit lives on. I will leave you with something I wrote in my diary back then - "Ek din bichar hobe. Ek din sasti hobe, adalat e na hole rastai" ( One day, there will be justice. One day, the perpetrators will be punished, either in court or on the road).