Life & death...

“Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.”

The phenomenon of death is profound. Medically, death is just like night falling after day, a routine logical phenomenon. Spiritually, life and death are like night and day, one following the other in eternal cycles until absolution. But, in everyday life, in the context of the social matrix that frames our existence, death of a person brings with it a lot of unique effects and responses in the world that person leaves behind. And though death is thought to be a dark event, which it is in many ways, death can have a silver lining too.


As far as the person renouncing physical existence is concerned, death can have different connotations. If a person lives a full, virtuous, successful & healthy life and dies a natural death with minimum suffering, it is a befitting end to a life well-lived. But, as it is correctly said, a person who has attended to all the responsibilities and obligations to the best of his/her ability is sure to live on in the minds of people he/she has touched, even though things may not have been rosy during his/her lifetime. Death, thus, proves to be just a semi-colon rather than being a full stop.


It is often remarked, mostly sarcastically, that death has a curious ability to paint a person in a saintly aura – “bada achha admit tha...” But death does indeed lead people to look back on the life of the deceased and try to take lessons and inspirations in a way they never did when the person was alive. There are devoted patriarchs who spend their lives trying to reconcile and keep together their immediate or extended families they have nurtured with care and effort, while the family members keep bickering on various issues of vanity, property and the like. During their lifetime, the patriarchs are termed as nosy and time-warped people. However, their death, in some cases atleast, serves as a catalyst that brings the family together, even if for a brief period of time. The intense recognition of the permanent loss can galvanize a lot of faultlines. And if that happens, the person is most certainly still alive even after death.


Death also tends to open the floodgates of nostalgia. From my own experiences, as the tears begin to dry out and the embers of the pyre begin to turn into ash, all the memories of the departed souls – of times good and bad, of celebration and acrimony, of achievement & deprivation, of elation & heartbreak – come flowing through the mind. The eyes swell up again in a bittersweet emotion and the person is alive all over again. In a life of hectic everyday demands, such times stop the clock for an ephemeral moment, and help us in remembering what we are neglecting or leaving behind, knowingly or unknowingly. Equally importantly, it reaffirms to us the values and principles the departed stood for and, if we respected and loved and cared for that person, it forces us to vow to uphold those principles and values forever. This is what makes the person immortal, the guiding light.


Of course, when a person you love is physically gone, a void is created that can never ever be filled again. But, firstly, death is inevitable and it is bound to find its mark someday; you only wish it does so elegantly. Secondly, if you put your best foot forward to continue what the person endeavoured to do in his/her life, you will forever find a guiding and loving spirit taking you home.

“To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.”