Dissertations on death

Is death a total black out, a whirlpool of voidness sucking one to the vast darkness of endless space? Is it a passport to heaven or to hell?Or is it a long sleep from which one never wakes up?
Death is mysterious that is why it is scary since nobody has come back after dying to tell us what it is like.Death hangs as a sword on every living creature born on this earth.Every creature fears death ,.Even an insignificant ant when it falls into water will try to swim with its tiny legs to save its life.We poor human beings unfortunately endowed with a thinking and reasoning mind fear it all the more as how much ever we wrestle with our mind no answere regarding death and there after can be found .The terrible truth is that death is something beyond our knowledge and control and this fosters fear .
TO this general there rule there is an exception To some life is more fearfull than death.
It is a fact of life that we are all under the illussion that although we know that thousands have lived and died before us and will live and die after us ,and that the present circle of relatives ,friends or even a stranger on the street or park or on the beach will not be here physically in 50 to 100 years thence ,we continue to think that we are immortal ,death will pass us by ! Althoughpeople are passing away around us ,we are sure we will definetly live on at least to a very ripe old age which is simply aeons away.Death strikes lesser mortals not me !
Is it a final goodbye when air chooses not to pass through one any more and has taken the abstract essence of a person along with it to mingle in air and other primeval elements from which it was first fashioned ? '
Three years back my 8o year old mother said that 'death 'was nothing but an emotion .I did'nt subscribe to her view then but now Iam not so sure and have come around to the view that death is an experience like getting scalded by fire the firs t time as a child or the first plunge headlong into water .It is a experience and experiences are borne out of emotions evoked by the senses.
The terrible truth is that every experience one goes through in life i.e succes and failure ,ecstacy and anguish undergone and the deadly dilemma's that evoke raging conflicts and crystal clear certitudes which are the harbinger s of peace ,the thrill of clasping one's first newborn and theprimeval waves of sorrow engulfing one on seeing that infant now a man being carried down the steps by four other men,the confidence gained at the knowledge of being frimly anchored to ones belief's that aid one in withering various battles of life and the sudden loss of one's moorings due to a un imaginable twist in fate battered around mercilessly in a sea of sorrow and the slow healing of the wounds by the presense and kindness of the second son and time ,have a recall value where as the experience called death which I and every one else is going to experience one day can never be revived or recalled to my or any one'elses memory ...
The conclusion I have arrived at is that death is an experience, the memory of which has been obliterated before, now and here after . An experience without a recall value, the memory of which is lost eternally in this vast universe .

continuation

Finally the loss of loved ones to death .Here also there are degrees of grief .If it is a ancestor say father or mother so old


that it would'nt be cruel to describe them as having one foot in the grave,the grief is brief.Yes the physical presence is missed ,more so their timely wise suggestions and advise borne out of experience .Here also what is missed is their guidance.Nobody thinks such a person generally in 80's could have lived few more years enjoying life for itself.
Then comes the harshest grief of all-losing one's child.Yudhishtra when asked by a yaksha testing his credentials to the tittle of Dharma putra as to what was the worst sorrow of all , replied 'putrasoka' i.e losing one's children to death.This reply satisfied the yaksha.
Yes, to lose a young son at the threshold of a huge vista of life ,who has not tasted the pleasures of married life being denied the pleasure of hearing the sweet babble of his children or the thrill of feeling like a monarch whilst over coming minor day to day battles at work place ,in quest of money and fame and lending a strong shoulder to his aged parents when they lose their strengh making them feel wanted and secure, is a grief unimaginable by parents. The very thought is horrific and if one has to actually endure this in life ,it is the pinnacle of all grief.
Here too, is there an element of selfishness ? The sheer denial of the physical presense of the offspring is the most unbearable part of the grief.Is he missed because his presence which equated to unasked for but taken as granted, support both physically and morally is denied?Is it the feeling of loneliness created suddenly by this vaccum in one's life that enhances one's sorrow?

It is easy to intellectualise but the emotions one is assailled of at the thought of the irreversible finalityof the loss and the memory of the lost son which is so real like as if he is sitting in his favourite chair and is smiling at me and laughing with me and that I just have to stretch a bit to touch but when I do he is not there ,so near yet so far ,is decidedly difficult to surmount.

Each to one's own grief.

continuation

Then there is the grief of the child less couple .Their yearnings and plea's falling on deaf ears of the creator.Social pressures add to their sorrow and they seek solace in each other's company imagining the partner as child to be nourished and protected a substitute when confronted with the truth that for them are not the pleasures of bearing and rearing their own little one's.Here too self prevails,the man feels cheated for not having his name carried into distant future,the woman feels handicapped for being denied a natural and commonplace event in her biological cycle .
A child less woman once told me bitterly and sadly that she had been denied the pleasure of having a child whilst every one around seems to be liberally endowed and take it for granted their bevy of offsprings .If only she knew how I blessed with what she jealously regarded as the ultimate joy often envied her for being spared of the horribly empty feeling in my stomach that greeted me every morning for severalmonths with the realisationt that I was to endure yet another day with seesawing emotions that accompanied the memories rushing at me ,the thrill I felt at the first step of my first son,his precise parroting of our words,his uninhibited happiness at the first glimpse of pouring rain and to feel his physical and mental pains as my own,the huge emotional investment I had made for 24 years smashed to smithereens in a few seconds leaving me to pick up the broken pieces of life .
That childless woman was denied the pleasure but was definetly spared the pain.

contiuation

To some ,especially young men whose love for some damsel has been spurned fall into deep depression.Being a woman I am unable to comprehend this grief probably just as a man cannot comprehend the depth or the intensity of the grief of a mother losing her child. The world is full of girls .If not this there is always another .More over the girl one pines for would become matronly within a matter of 10 years.The youthful bloom lost fore ever in the birth of a child and each passing year will cruelly deposit layers of fat .The once tragic lover is sure to recoil at the very sight of his lover for whom he was once prepared to lay down even his life!
Yes at that moment of youth the first flush of love and it s loss may well be unbearable.I am not trivialising such emotions.It is very real and natural at that juncture,but 'youth the exciting and most wonderful period in nearly all human beings life with its accompanying idealism and volatile emotions' slowly and surely fades away and merges into the complancey of middle age sooner or later.It is but a matter of time.
to be contd

Guise's of grief

To some loss of money is a insurmountable grief.To others loss of name is an unspeakable grief.To some failure in love is a unquenched grief .To several losing a close family member to the cruelty and finality of death is a inconsolable grief.
IN each of the above mentioned grief commonly plaguing mankind is the element of selfishness.One loses money and then thinks what will to happen me ? I'll be on the streets!Well there are several living on the streets already and that to happily .Just a couple of yards away from my house a young couple have converted part of the pavement into a dwelling place .They cook,eat and let their tiny tots play on the road happily.They are a public entertainment yet they are living cheerfully!I have come across people who mourn loss of wealth and consider it to be the greatest grief - I fail to understand this degree ,because a turn in events and life can bring back all if not even more than the wealth so tearfully lost.But can life once lost be ever brought back? All the riches in the world cannot do so .
Then comes the matter relating to the loss of ones name and reputation. This is something both the rich and the poor abhor. What will people think of me ,how will Iface my friends and relatives is the question that reveberates in the person 's mind who is grieving the loss of name.Why? Because in their own circles they are moulding their life according to that group's notion of right and wrong,i.e instead of living for themselves as per their natural inclinations and tendencies ,submit to the demands of parents,friends,collegues etc and when one slips ,the imaginary and illusory world of name and fame comes crashing down ,its impact so terrible that some never get up. Just pause a bit and take a look at our political leaders..They project themselves as clean and full of integerity but figure on and off in one scam or the other and some have even cases pending against them!Do they care for loss of name?Hardly.Another shining example not to bother about loss of face unduly are our iconalistic cricketers ! They 'll hit a duck, miss catches nonchalantly and fail to win matches and give interviews without batting a eye lid quite cheerfully[ whilst their fans millions in number become gloomy ,and depressed] They [cricketers] are ready and raring to play the next match in high spirits!
to be contd...

Why?

My heart swelled with pride when Vidat aged about 22 years an adult to the world but a mere lad to me went to his office in a chaffeur driven white car ,even more when he refused to drop me on the way saying the conveyance was for official purpose.
The same heart broke into peices when 2 years later he was conveyed in a black van.The unthinkable has happened.My son ,my child who should have succeed me has preceeded me.He,my son [ putra ] should be the one performing my last rites but here I am performing his. Some Events which were within my grasp and several beyond my control or comprehension has pushed me into a life of deep sorrow.All my love,affection and knowledge couldnt save Vidat. Is it true ? Did it happen?Won' t he push open the front door at 7 in the evening ,kick his shoes off and say Ma do you know what happened today and relate to me the day's happenings ?
The same heart is still ticking.How and why ?Was it God's intention to shake me up from my comfortable cocoon of middle -class life that chiefly consisted of untiring rounds of shopping, attending social functions to show off my latest pure silk sarees and ornaments,watching films ,enjoying languid noonsiestas, genarally a lotus eaters life ,to look around and endeavour to wipe the tears of his imperfect creations and make attempts to serve those less privelleged, who were ofcourse always there ,whose conditions had evoked pity from the periphery that was far from, my comfort zone and make a hea dlong plunge into a life of service to the deprived lot ,though stressful is sort of spirutuallyuplifting ?

India shining

A funny sight outside my first floor bedroom window on a hot May morning.The pvt company..... sanitary workers started shovelling two days of un collected garbage that was and is being dumped every other second by the the multitude of slum dwellers who seem to average 10 per single room tenements right opposite to my apartment and generate tremendous amount of garbage [a pointer towards economic prosperity] which they unhesitatingly and as a matter of right dump on the taxpayers side of the road as we the middle class sincere tax payers are a dumb lot having no political clout whatso ever, because we never vote enmasse' ,in fact enjoy election days as hollidays relaxing at front of the t.v whilst they receive money,goodies etc and vote religio usly,Now to get back to my story ,the sanitary workers started cleaning the dump from which such a huge stink arose that I had to flee from my room to the next.After a few minutes the stench ceased and I returned to myr oom and looked out of the window to greeted byan unusual sight.The 4or 5 young cleaners were drinking tea near a waiting mini truck in which all the garbage was dumped chatting happily whilst a young lad was taking photos of his co workers with a cell phone camera!
Clearing the road of garbage is not such a memorable event so as to be recorded in a cell phone camera, as it is part and parcel of his job , so most probably he was in augurating his newly purchased mobile! A sure sign of India's growing prosperity!B arely a decade back possesing a mobile phone was a symbol of luxury and the perogative of the rich but now it is considered as a neccesity in a highly voluble society and is accquired easiley by a vast majority of Indians !Even my neighbour hood rag picker has one !