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January 11, 2006

Death and Life and such - scene 2 from my head.

Death is not something I am comfortable with. For that matter, it is something that not many of us are comfortable with or have made peace with. I don't discuss it, I don't like to see it happen in movies, I don't even like to write about it and even if I do, it is with considerable effort that I do.

And why such a morbid topic to talk about? Well, all I wanted to do was write another post like the previous one, about my days at Bits and the one memory that I tried to keep avoiding, that is still clear in my mind, is one involving death. The one scene that keeps coming back to me is one of my closest friend, holding the telephone receiver tightly and crying as she kept repeating, "இருக்கவே முடியாது! நீங்க தப்பா சொல்லரேங்கோ! அப்பா உடம்புக்கு என்ன? சொல்லுங்கோ!" - she had just heard from her relatives that her dad was critically ill.

And that was my first introduction to the realities of life. At that point, all I wanted to do was run away, laugh hysterically, do anything to not hear her voice. But I did stay there, I did hear her voice and later when she came back after a month, I did manage to make her feel better.

The day before she returned, my friends and I decided that we would try our best to cheer her up and so we did the last thing that people expected us to do, we decorated her room, doodled on the walls, wrote anything that we thought would make her laugh - filled her space with the trivial pleasures that life is sometimes kind enough to let us indulge in. And when she came back and saw her room, she did laugh.

A few days later, she told me, "ரம்யா, எல்லாரும் என்னை பாவம் மாதிரி பாக்கரா...எனக்கு பிடிக்கவே இல்லை..." (Ramya, everyone looks at me with pity, I dont like it at all...) I don't remember what words of wisdom(?), consolation (or the very lack of it) escaped my mouth that day but I promised myself that I would not make the same mistake. And while I was not mature enough to handle anything this grave, I was glad she confided in me. I felt closer to her that day than I ever had in the past.

We tried to help, in our own little ways, in the only ways we could...we tried to help knowing we would never feel what she feels until destiny chooses us next to play its cruel game on. Destiny, a single word for all that we cannot make sense of - the present, the past, life and death...

And that concludes scene #2 in my head.

6 comments:

BUS said...

u reminded me of the day I heard about GAS! Now he is forgotten but sometimes posts like this remind me of him

TJ said...

Death is the ultimate reality! Though i sound philosophical, a death teaches humilty and opens up what life is, more than reading philosophical books for decades.

Only thing to pray for is the strength for the kith and kin to take the loss.

dinesh said...

I am not comfortable with the concept either..

Funny that you'd try to decorate her room when she comes in. Cute thing to do !

Aditya Namjoshi said...

My 2 cents...ponder over it...

Death does not exist. Death is an idea which man has created to label a phenomenon of degeneration of the body. There is no reason to be afraid of death, because it is a myth created by the mind. Purely a thought. And thoughts are ofcourse not real. They come and go. They are unconnected, absurd, rising and falling in consciousness. Idea of birth and death is one such thought. OK, lets start with an assumption that your state after death would be the same as your state before birth. Now let us think about your stage before birth. What would you say. You would say that I did not exist before my birth. Now I ask you "how do you know". The very knowing that you did not exist before your birth means that there was somebody before your birth experiencing the non-existence of yourself. Think, think, think. Deep, not superficially. You will understand that the very idea of birth and death is nothing but a myth. I know that I am not my thought, but the consciousness from which thoughts come. Then how can I limit myself to an idea created by that thought. If I ask you a question, why are you so afraid of death. You might probably say that I would cease to exist. Oh, then I would say that you cease to exist even in your sleep. And you have absolutely no problem in your sleep. When you get up you say that I enjoyed my sleep. So whats so scary about death. With every inhalation you take birth, when you hold the breath you live and when you exhale you die. Birth and Death is happening all the time if looked at it that way. I would say, do some deep thinking, you will get over the phobia of death atleast in normal circumstances. Once you get enlightened then in all circumstance you will experience yourself as beyond death. But till then lets use our faculties of intelligence, reason to analyze these issues.

RS said...

aditya - interesting! Have to read it a few more times before I get the full import of it!

Aditya Namjoshi said...

What I think is that the biggest clue to understand death is to contemplate of what is birth and where from I have come. This question does not have an answer. But we should keep contemplating till this question drops. Once the question drops then you have found your answer. The reason I am saying that we should contemplate on birth is that the human mind is more confortable thinking about the past than the future.

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