Posts tagged "Death"

God of Sparrows

Summer of April is always better than the summer of May and the latter is always better than summer of June. Summer of July is worst, it burns the synthetic fabric which then melts and gets stuck to the vest and leave its colour there, like a stamp of authority, as if the vest belongs to the shirt, as if the shirt forgets who’s its master for a while in the heat of the sun.

There’s a reason why cotton is costlier than synthetic, it minds its own business, doesn’t interfere in anyone else’s business, doesn’t get attached to any other fabric. Cotton is the buddha of the fabric universe. Continue reading

Kiss of Love

Marriages are tough to manage and if it is an Indian marriage, God be with you. Aniket was looking for his one chance since morning to kiss Kaajal whereas she had kept herself busy with something or the other, and necessarily so. Managing the wedding of your younger sister is no small task. Each and every relative has to be given the highest level of importance or else the taunts shall be made at the poor wedding planning for at least a decade. In some cases, those were the kids of the couple getting married who grew up enough to tell the grown-ups to stop acting childish. Kaajal didn’t want to be blamed for anything. She was making sure every guest was well fed because, logically, that is what Indian weddings are all about. Continue reading

Naani

Naani passed away due to a cardiac arrest on the night of 7th and 8th June, 2014. I received a phone call from my sister at the early hours of the morning, informing me about it. The first thought that crossed my mind was how my mother would cope up with this loss. By then, I didn’t know what happened to Naani. I could only imagine my shattered mother feeling homeless, guideless and still to sail through 30-40 years of her life, now without her mother. I talked to my mother for less than a minute and before I could think anything about the situation or what to do about it, I found myself in metro, traveling towards Kashmere Gate ISBT. Continue reading

Biggest Question

In continuation with “Bigger Question

Do you remember what I asked? I asked, “Can you be silent?”

Silence is hated because it is in abundance. If you believe you hardly get time to be silent or you hardly find anyone sitting silently, you are looking at things in a much smaller perspective.

Noise, sound doesn’t break the silence. It is the silence that breaks the noise. Silence is brave enough to exist among the interval between the two noises. It is everywhere. Without silence, there could be no rhythm in music. Without silence, no work of art can ever be accomplished. Without silence, no journey can be made. Silence is outside, silence is inside. Continue reading

Bigger Question

In continuation with Big Question

The big question is not “Why are you here?” The big question is “Are you aware of where you are?” And yet, there are always bigger questions, just like there is always a new mystery to solve, a new milestone to achieve, a new record to break. But isn’t there a limit to everything? How far can you go? How high can you jump? How fast can you run? Continue reading

Fruits & Seeds

A dozen bananas, five chickoos, three guavas, two boxes of strawberries, two pomegranates, one huge canary melon and lots of grapes. This is my menu for today.

Over the last few months, I have spent more money on fruits than on anything else. I have delayed holiday trips, I have avoided eat outs, I have avoided movies, I have avoided summer shopping, I have avoided spending on books but I have not been able to avoid spending on fruits. Moreover, I have begun to dislike the regular spicy food and I have fallen in love with the natural sweetness and nourishment of the fruits.

Has it helped me? Yes! Continue reading

Deathless

Thoughts travel in the dimension of time. You can think about past, present or future and you can spend hours contemplating about things that don’t matter. It won’t be tiring to you at all, it would just consume time. What an irony, thinking about time requires time. Life is measured not in days or months or years, it is measured in time. The words, ‘day’, ‘month’ ‘year’, ‘decade’ and ‘century’ are just synonyms of the word ‘time’. Creation needs time, destruction needs time, loving needs time, hating needs time, walking, eating, sleeping, observing, everything needs time, except death. It happens instantly and there is no time left. The dead are timeless. Continue reading

Thank You

I was getting ready for college when my uncle called from the hospital. She was no more. I didn’t know whether to feel sad that she has died or to feel happy that she has died at last. The news of her death wasn’t shocking to us but her loss was unacceptable. She was only 70. She was a cancer patient. She was a cancer survivor for the most part of her life. She, my grandmother, my mother’s mother was a woman of substance, and she was a woman I hadn’t spoken to nicely in a long time.

I had visited the hospital just two days ago. She was put on life support system. I didn’t agree with the idea of putting her on a life support system. She wasn’t conscious. The doctors too had told us already to take her home and wait till she breathes her last. She was a fighter, and so were her children. They chose not to give up yet, they chose to fight against the disease that was enjoying the destruction of organs. Her children decided to make it easier for her to leave. They didn’t want her to wither away in pain. One by one, her tissues started to fail. Liver stopped responding, kidneys stopped performing, lungs gave way, but she, somehow, thrived on. Continue reading

An Encounter With Death

I had never been to a graveyard in my life before. It was my uncle’s death anniversary. I didn’t know him much but I felt a connect, a strange connect when I stood beside his grave. The news of his death last year was shocking. No one expected that this would happen. Not even my uncle would have imagined his death. I wasn’t at the burial last year but as I stared at the ground, blank faced, I could imagine a clear picture as to how it would have been. There is no shedding of tears right now. The faith that we will meet him soon makes my heart smile. That’s mere faith that comes with hope. Hope to meet him soon and faith that our hopes would turn out to be true one day. I was engulfed in utter silence. Nobody had anything to share. I wonder how my uncle felt when he breathed his last breath. A second before leaving this world, what exactly he would have felt? Guilt? Regret? That he couldn’t live his life a little longer? My uncle was a filthy rich man. I think regret could have been an emotion he felt at that particular moment. What about the thought of leaving his wife and only son? Does a person before dying think about himself and his present condition? Does he ponder upon the fact that in a matter of seconds he will be no more? Or does he think about the plight of the people he will be leaving behind? No book, no individual on Earth has got this opportunity to write how he or she felt when they died. Continue reading