To Death.

Recently some near one of mine lost one of her dear ones to death.

And I again felt the same black hollow feeling of nothingness. The one that I felt when my cat had died. All I could do was to watch the cat lie lifeless with eyes that still shone with the brightness once bestowed by life.
Why do we use 'life' as a positive term in literature?
Why do we hugely undermine and ignore the ever lasting quality of deception that this 'life' so shamelessly sports and slaps on each one's face at the final moment of one's ... err... well, life?

Thinkers and philosophers have always thought upon this. Meaning of life, aim of life and all.
I haven't. I ain't no philosopher. Have only heard and read people thinking their thoughts loudly about life and death.
And have appreciated and condemned many thoughts wandering in the space.

Let me think about it, now.

We hear, life and death are the ultimate antonym sets of this mortal world. Well, thinking again, are they?
Its a no brainer that death is the absence of life. As simple this axiom may seem, but this has a big impact on people who'd try to follow my train of thoughts.
Death being the absence of life denies the very existence of death as a separate entity. Either you are alive, or not. There is nothing we can call 'death'. This leads us to rethink another 'axiom'.
The principle of duality.
Light- Darkness..
Positive - Negative

Matter- Antimatter ?...

Does every magnetic pole need to have an opposite magnetic pole for the validation of its own existence?

Indeed life is the only truth that we know of. Or the absence of it. Everything else is propagation of our own self comforting beliefs, that we believe to be true. 
I know it sounds kinda rebellious, but even the axiom of 'family' appears superficial to me sometimes. When Arundhati Roy refers the two egg twins (brother and sister) in 'The God of small things' as strangers who had a chance encounter, I can do nothing but admire the truth.

Yes. We all are alone. One by one, the whole mass is alone. Every single soul wanders with only itself as the journey pal.

In the childhood, when I read about a Siddharth leaving his family to become a Buddha, or a Vivekananda becoming a wandering monk, leaving his family for some greater cause, I used to feel bad.

Now, I don't. Its not that I too plan to leave my family some day. No. I love my joint family and every single member of it. But I have just realized that what made Siddhartha and Vivekananda, and many other thinkers and philosophers to leave something good for something better was this.
Management of the mortal span of life that one has been bestowed with. They might have believed in afterlife, but surely none of them would have been sure of it. That's why they left their loved ones for some worthier cause before their life ended. (read, before their death arrived.)
That effectively means that life is a non renewable resource which needs heavy and diligent resource management. And that demands for a serious set of priority lists.
May be that's the origin of the eternal question... "What do I want out of my life?"
I dunno. I ain't even in the position to know. But would definitely like to know.
But wait, would I? To give it a second thought, If I know what I want out of my life, wouldn't it end all the uncertainties of life I so dearly cherish? Wouldn't it be like working in a chemistry lab, then?
*Aim of the Experiment:
*Materials:
*Theory...
*Procedure...
*Precautions:...

It frightens me and disheartens me at the same time. And I know why.
Life, as we see it, is humane because we have got limited controls over it. I might know that I have 'x' amount of money in my bank balance, I might know that I like a girl; I may also know that the girl also likes me to an equal degree, but still I don't know many truths. Let alone controlling them. I don't know whether I would live long enough to enjoy my life with the bank balance I have. I don't know whether the girl I like would be as reciprocating in the future as well...
And a truth can not be controlled anyways. It can only be known. And told.
But again, even if I were told the truth, would it actually help me? I would find newer questions. And newer answers. And newer-er questions.

If I know for sure what I want out of my life, I know I would be overdriven to achieve it. I would bend hell to fight for it. In some slight but non ignorable probability, I might achieve it too.
Then what?

Life would still end, and take with itself all my successes, all my failures, all my pains, all the smiles that I had on my lips and on others' because of me, all the knowledge that I gained every time I stumbled upon some presumed notion of having known it all, the blessings of every good act I did, the curse of every sin I committed... life would end with itself the whole drama of life. The paraphernalia. Gone.

And an even hard hitting truth awaits for its disclosure now. Whatever I wanted out of my life would be taken away from me. Like a strange delusion. I wanted an alarm clock. I got loads of shiny bright alarm clocks around me in my dream. I woke up. Gone. every single one of them.
So, if having an alarm clock in a dream doesn't count, why should achieving some worthy goal in one's life count?
 They are all gonna be snatched anyways. Family, love, life, deeds... alarm clocks...

The touch of death scene touches me hard. It makes everything look futile. A strange sense of non-association creeps in. It feels all hollow. Every goal seems not worth pursuing. It all turns grey.

And then a strange thought infects me. I smile. Because every goal that I had ever wanted to achieve would have given me nothing more, but smile. Money? Yes, only to be gone. Sense of success? Yes, Only to be overtaken by some worthier goal to be pursued and succeeded in. 
But a smile, like an entire lifetime would bloom, so thanklessly in my mind. A sense of satisfaction not for achieving anything, but just for the sake of nothingness. 


A pure, white smile.
Death, you can take life away ( For argument's sake, I bestow you a separate entity. But I would take it back.) But you can do nothing to a smile. You can not take a smile away because it was not physical anyways. You can rot the lips, but what about the strange sense of unadulterated satisfaction that the smile gave to none but the one who smiled? 
He would take that ethereal smile with himself, wherever he goes.
Before death. After death.

To Death: You can not take a smile away.

Monday, May 03, 2010
Alok K.

( Image courtesy: DHRRA Malaysia)