When I read this facebook
post saying that immediately after you die, your identity would become a ‘body’
and no one would call you by your name, I was reminded of a long distance call
that woke me up from my short afternoon nap one day.
The familiar voice from beyond asked, “Were you sleeping?”
“No,” I said, “What’s new?”
“I saw yesterday’s evening news….Advocate Krishnan Nair died.”
I didn’t ask who Krishnan Nair was. Whoever he was, he must have been important enough to make into the local channel news after death.
“He had blood cancer,” I listened silently.
“You know, they showed his body being taken for funeral. He had all his hair on his head and moustache too…” I then got an insinuation regarding the struggled description of Advocate Krishnan Nair’s death.
“I too want my hair and moustache intact when they take me out.”
After a pause, I said. “Sure. You will have all your hair on your head and the moustache too. We will ask for the treatment without any side effects.”
My reply seemingly doused the immediate anxiety regarding the treatment and the subsequent hair loss.
“Okay”, came the passive response and the line went out.
There is a saying in Malayalam, ‘Chathu kidannalum chamanju kidakkanam’ which means, even when you are lying dead, you should look your best. When you spend a whole life caring and impressing others, why not do so in death too or at least wish to be so.
My grandmother told us all years before her demise that she had kept a passport size photo of hers in her wooden box and we needn't hunt the house for a photograph immediately after her death to publish it in the death column of the newspaper. The best one she could find, that brought out her in all her magnificence.
Recently, I came to know that an aunt of mine has expressed her wish to have a particular delicacy served on the seventh day feast that follows her boarding the Death’s Chariot.
Our physical form definitely loses its identity once the breath leaves. We will not smell the fragrance of the flowers on our hearse nor feel the comfort of the clothes put on us. We will not hear the heart rending wail of the mourners, may there be one or many. Despite knowing all this, we worry about the care and camaraderie our ‘body’ and memory later would get to enjoy.
After a certain age, people start talking that their ‘time’ would soon come, though heart of heart they would be wishing that it never arrived. Everyone would grab perpetual youth and immortality if they are offered on a platter. Prudence would not make people admit it and would make them speak wise words about old age and death.
No one wants to die. But, when death is inevitable, imagine that to be in all splendor, majestic.
“Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility”
The familiar voice from beyond asked, “Were you sleeping?”
“No,” I said, “What’s new?”
“I saw yesterday’s evening news….Advocate Krishnan Nair died.”
I didn’t ask who Krishnan Nair was. Whoever he was, he must have been important enough to make into the local channel news after death.
“He had blood cancer,” I listened silently.
“You know, they showed his body being taken for funeral. He had all his hair on his head and moustache too…” I then got an insinuation regarding the struggled description of Advocate Krishnan Nair’s death.
“I too want my hair and moustache intact when they take me out.”
After a pause, I said. “Sure. You will have all your hair on your head and the moustache too. We will ask for the treatment without any side effects.”
My reply seemingly doused the immediate anxiety regarding the treatment and the subsequent hair loss.
“Okay”, came the passive response and the line went out.
There is a saying in Malayalam, ‘Chathu kidannalum chamanju kidakkanam’ which means, even when you are lying dead, you should look your best. When you spend a whole life caring and impressing others, why not do so in death too or at least wish to be so.
My grandmother told us all years before her demise that she had kept a passport size photo of hers in her wooden box and we needn't hunt the house for a photograph immediately after her death to publish it in the death column of the newspaper. The best one she could find, that brought out her in all her magnificence.
Recently, I came to know that an aunt of mine has expressed her wish to have a particular delicacy served on the seventh day feast that follows her boarding the Death’s Chariot.
Our physical form definitely loses its identity once the breath leaves. We will not smell the fragrance of the flowers on our hearse nor feel the comfort of the clothes put on us. We will not hear the heart rending wail of the mourners, may there be one or many. Despite knowing all this, we worry about the care and camaraderie our ‘body’ and memory later would get to enjoy.
After a certain age, people start talking that their ‘time’ would soon come, though heart of heart they would be wishing that it never arrived. Everyone would grab perpetual youth and immortality if they are offered on a platter. Prudence would not make people admit it and would make them speak wise words about old age and death.
No one wants to die. But, when death is inevitable, imagine that to be in all splendor, majestic.
“Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility”
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