Ending It All

The cacophony of blaring horns and screeching tires assaulted Arth's senses as he stood motionless on the sidewalk, watching the ceaseless flow of cars charge down the congested street. Pedestrians jostled past in a hurried blur, their muffled chatter merging into white noise that drowned out his troubled thoughts.

Arth's gaze fixated on the faded zebra crossing painted on the asphalt just a few meters ahead. A hazy halo of exhaust fumes wafted from the idling vehicles, stinging his eyes. He blinked, torn from his trance by the jarring blare of a truck's horn as it rumbled by.

In that moment of distraction, the intrusive thought that had been gnawing at the back of his mind burst forth with cruel intensity.

Should I end it all?

The words reverberated through his psyche, their bitter aftertaste lingering like the acrid smog. Arth's fingers reflexively clutched the frayed strap of his backpack, the bulging textbooks inside weighing heavier than any schoolbag should.

A tremor rippled through his slight frame as he recalled the crushing pressures that had steadily mounted until reaching this unbearable apex. Until a permanent solution had begun whispering its dark sermon, an insidious voice that grew more insistent with each passing day.

If only things had been different...

His mind rewound to happier times, those cherished days of childhood when the world seemed full of vibrant possibilities. When his innate intelligence was a wondrous gift to be nurtured rather than a millstone of expectation around his neck.

At the tender age of five, Arth had already displayed a remarkable proclivity for grasping complex concepts far beyond his years. From multiplication tables to memorizing world capitals, his eager young mind devoured knowledge with an insatiable hunger.

He could still picture those proud smiles beaming from his parents' faces whenever he aced another test or mental exercise with apparent ease. The way his father's eyes would crinkle with undisguised pride, his calloused hands ruffling Arth's hair in a gentle gesture of love and overwhelming hopes pinned on his only son.

"My boy is going to be an engineer one day," his father would declare, his deep baritone swelling with certainty. "First in the family to make something of himself. You'll be building big dams and cities!"

In those innocent moments, no dream seemed too distant. But as the years marched on, that luminous path forward gradually twisted into a gauntlet riddled with imposing obstacles.

By sixth grade, Arth's studies had accelerated into a relentless grind of advanced textbooks, private tutors and endless practice exams. Playdates with friends dwindled until his social life was stripped down to the bare minimum "acceptable" distractions.

"How can you ever expect to get into an IIT if you waste time playing stupid games?" his mother would chide, sliding another meticulously planned study schedule across the kitchen table.

The constant refrain about getting into an IIT - one of India's prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology - echoed with increasing stridency over the years until it wasn't a lofty goal but a mandatory decree backed by vague threats of failing as a "complete disgrace."

Arth's father, a shopkeeper who had sacrificed his own scholarly ambitions to provide for the family, enforced this doctrine with well-meaning toxicity. "If you don't make it into an IIT, you might as well become a chhatak," he'd caution, using the derogatory term for a street sweeper.

The unrelenting barrage of disparagement and psychological warfare from those who were supposed to nurture him ultimately bore the intended result - a somber boy bending under the weight of ambition distorted into an obsession.

By eleventh grade, Arth had become a mirage of his former bright-eyed self, the pressures suffocating his creativity and self-worth until his identity splintered into fragments revolving around one make-or-break benchmark - the Joint Entrance Examination.

Better known as JEE, this daunting crucible culled millions of students from across India in a gladiatorial arena of academic and psychological endurance. Those who survived the ordeal were initiated into the hallowed sanctums of technology and engineering, their rewards being the prestige and financial security every parent dreamed of.

But the price of admission into this cerebral elite could shatter even the most resilient of psyches.

For Arth, it manifested in the acidic voices of self-doubt that corroded his confidence with chilling efficiency. The haunting refrain of "you're not good enough" reverberating through his dreams until driving him into restless study binges that stretched into the loneliest hours of the night.

Everywhere he turned, the evidence of youth being razed for the sake of hyper-focused ambition glared back at him. Plasterered across the city on banners and billboards - beaming students brandishing their admission letters like battlefield conquests. The unblinking stares and grins of those who had metamorphosed into fleshy IIT promotional icons.

That creeping sense of failure, the nagging fear of public humiliation, seized Arth in its vicious grip until his hands shook trying to solve equations that should have been trivial. Until the validation he desperately craved slipped further away like a mirage retreating over the scorched horizon, until his very sense of self started fracturing.

Last night's disastrous attempt at a practice exam had been the spark that lit the powderkeg of Arth's gathering storm.

As he stumbled home under the weight of his mounting inadequacies and burned-out dreams, that malevolent inner voice that had been murmuring for so long rose to a deafening crescendo.

Just end it all.

In the depths of his bedroom, surrounded by sprawled textbooks, the blade of a utility knife had gleamed almost...invitingly. Arth had curled his fist around the cool metal handle, the whispers urging him to etch finality into his alabaster wrist.

But something held him back, whether fortitude or frailty, he couldn't say. He had fallen into a restless slumber instead, haunted by hallucinatory corridors that had bent and blurred until he startled awake in a confused panic.

Which brought him here, meandering half-awake down the bustling city street until those deafening four words returned, amplified into a deafening chant echoing from every car horn and shouted obscenity.

Should I end it all? End it all...END IT ALL?

So consumed was he by the torrent of bleak impulses that Arth scarcely registered the trill of his phone buzzing in his pocket. A sharp percussive chirp piercing the haze.

It was probably another passive-aggressive reminder from one of those loathed IIT prep programs. Or his mother, no doubt preparing to rhetorically excoriate him for his latest failure. Maybe even his father delivering a fresh reminder about avoiding a future of ignominious street sweeping.

No, this path would only continue spiraling until either disappointment or unbearable demands for perfection delivered the killing stroke. Better to choose his own exit on his terms rather than be crushed like an insect on somebody else's windshield.

The choice solidified in Arth's mind like a steel girder being bolted into place. He felt an eerie calmness descend over him, the turmoil momentarily abating.

With a deep, steadying breath, he squared his shoulders and made his approach toward the edge of the sidewalk. Each step felt leaden yet propelled by a sobering sense of purpose.

A blaring horn startled him as a motorbike split the dense traffic, the rider careening past with casual indifference. In his unsettled peripheral vision, the world stuttered with a dreamlike unreality.

Just as he reached the boundary where the sidewalk ended and the breach into the rushing torrent of traffic yawned before him, an unfamiliar buzzing jostled his frayed concentration once more.

Arth fished his hand into his pocket, squinting at the illuminated screen which displayed the unknown number. Against his better judgment, he stabbed the Answer icon with his thumb.

"Arth...thank the gods..."

The quavering voice on the other end was laced with a strange, exotic lilt and resonance that commanded his attention.

"Who is this?" he ventured uncertainly, his suicide mission momentarily detained.

There was a pause, as if the mysterious caller were weighing how to proceed.

"Never mind who I am. I can assure you, ending your journey now would be a grave mistake, young Arth."