Celebration of first of January as the dawn of a new year is not an Indian tradition, even though it is becoming popular now. Yesterday being the end of the year 2011, I thought that one more year of my life has ended, bringing death closer.
So I did something today, which I have been planning to do for quite some time - visited the nearby cremation ground. Of course I, like every one of us have visited the cremation grounds on the deaths of close ones. But the visit of today was different.
I thought that when I die and my dead body is brought here, I wont be able to see the place. So why not go and see the place before hand and familiarise myself with the place?
Somehow I was hoping to find the cremation ground empty on this Sunday morning. But no- there were two pyres already burning and the third one was being got ready. The third dead body was placed on the ground, and freed from the ropes which had tied it tightly to the bamboos. The dead man’s face, God rest his soul in peace, looked surprisingly calm.
In ancient Egypt, life after death was an important part of life. The Egyptians believed that life after death was the greatest accomplishment of all. They would spend a good deal of their life time preparing for moving over from life to death. But we in India consider it a bad omen even to talk of death, let alone prepare ourselves for facing it.
So I think today I have taken my first step towards preparing for facing death – not out of fear or out of any religious compulsion, but with cool calm.
I do hope that I am able to retain this composure when death actually comes.
Let me end with the following lines written by John Donne:
“Death be not proud
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow...”
(Text and photos by KJS Chatrath)
