Death

Death - a truth which all of us must confront someday or the other. When life seems to go all good and strong, when all the worries seems to diminish in the fading evening light, death strikes as a rude reminder of what is in store for all of us in the future. No matter how much we earn, no matter how much good we do to people we know and love or to complete strangers or even if we decide to walk the ‘dark’ side of life, we all end up dead one day. The culmination of all things good and bad is death. It has often left me wondering, the whole make up of the lives we live. What is the purpose of living an honorable life, finding happiness in our puny success or feeling dejected when we fail, when the end of us all happens the same way? What difference does it make, if we loot and plunder, have all the pleasures of this world, no matter how devious the means might be, no matter whom all we hurt in the process, or we lead an honorable, responsible life?

Not to give this write up a religious taste or to repeat the classic fallacy of ‘devil sights scripture for his means’, but for the sake of argument… take the case of two of the greatest epics ever written in the history of mankind. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

In the end, when it was Duryodhana’s turn to die, he had neither remorse nor regret. On the contrary he was happy that he lived his life purely on his terms. Waged wars at his will. Slept with all the women he wanted to. Engaged in all forms of ‘forbidden pleasures’ and yet he attained moksha and got a seat in Swarga. The reason given for this end was that all through his life he followed his ‘kshatriya dharma’ to the last steadfast syllable. Now to take the case of his cousin Yudhishtira, he was considered to be the epitome of dharma. The man never lied in his life, was steadfast and truthful in his service to his elders and had all the good you could think of in a man. Yet, he was made to suffer through his entire life, was tested by his father Yama at every turn of his life. After the Great War, the Pandavas were left to rule the kingdom, but with no one by their side. All their beloved, including their very own sons were killed in the battle. He even had to endure the death of his brothers one by one, not in the field of battle like a Kshatriya could wish for, but on their journey towards ultimate salvation. When finally he reached Swarga he was surprised to see all his cousins whom he and his brothers had slain in the name of dharma enjoying the peace and tranquility and also the luxuries of Swarga.

Turn the page of history to Ramayana now. Here we have yet another epitome of incorruptibility and manhood. ‘The’ Ram himself. Yet, after the entire fiasco of battle of good over evil culminated in his getting back Sita from Ravana, which was done to save her chastity and his honor, at the mindless squabbling of some of his subjects, he forced his wife to undergo the test of chastity by sitting on a bed of fire. This act defies logic and defeats the total purpose of the war he waged. This humiliation was repeated on Sita two separate times at the end of which she left him and wandered off into the forest.  I still wonder why the men of old forge stories like this which leave you intriguing about what the right path is. Why do they leave the story in a big question mark where you are forced to question the motive of the hero, who otherwise is supposed to be as good as good can be? Why do they stain these immortal characters with the fallibility and frailty of a normal human? Ultimately what purpose does telling such a story serve?

While Mahabharata gave birth to one of the, if not the greatest manipulators in the history of mankind – no one, mind you no one, whether it is in fact or fiction comes close to this character, Krishna – Ramayana gave birth to the idea of the ideal person and the ideal kingdom. Mahabharata has single handedly redefined all the actions that were performed and that will be performed time immemorial by one single phrase “it is not the path, but the aim that is important and ultimate”.

Yet, all the upholders of justice and the ‘doers of good’ have invariably suffered and all the stories of the old are explained in such a way as to end their suffering. Somehow they have lead us to believe that the end of all suffering is salvation and happiness. But the other side of the story is that the perpetrators have their way throughout their life, enjoy all the earthly pleasures and glories, except when the moment of truth beckons for the victory of good over evil. Though good and evil are totally based on perspective, except in rare cases where a logical explanation cannot and must not be sought for certain heinous crimes, we shall leave that topic for another time.

Coming back to where I started, if the ultimate end of all the things, good and evil, as we know it is death, why should we bother to live according to the norms set by the society? Why should status, prestige, family honour, be reasons or rather priorities while taking decisions which set the course of our lives? When the norm of the world is increasingly bending towards ‘the survival of the fittest’ principle, for man and beast alike, why should emotions and considerations for others rule the day? Don’t you think it is justified if we act selfishly to meet our own gains, if we disregard the rights of others and go to any extend to get what we need?

Phrases like “It’s not who you are, but what you that defines you” and “It’s not when you die but how you live your life that counts” have no meaning in the long run. Time is a cruel manipulator who with one turn of its spoke can undo whatever (good or bad) we have done. It can make it seem like we have never existed. History, as it is told, is at the mercy of the living who can twist the facts to their liking to make a saint look like a sinner, a tyrant like a humanitarian and a homicidal pedophile, the caretaker of lost children. Examples are as clear as dust kicked up by horses’ hoofs on a dusty road, in our rich history. I refrain from quoting any. In short, all that we do has a better chance of either being forgotten or twisted for someone else’s prerogative rather than being told in its element and in its essence. A century or so from now, any one of our young officers in the army (for example) can be quoted in one of the passing conversations as a brave soul who kept his country above his personal gains and vendetta, or as a cruel officer who was a part of or who oversaw a genocide somewhere. Both these might be true. But the fact is by committing the genocide, he might have been executing an order, he might have been forced due to some unknown or unheard factors. All this lies at the mercy of the ‘story teller’. Our cases are no different.

We are caught in this life long spiral, where we are forced to make a living for ourselves, forced to live a respectable life and forced to do what other people do and continue doing all these mundane activities for our entire lifecycle until the spiral finally ends in our death. Anarchy seems to be the most logical and just of all.

I am not lost or desperate or emotionally disturbed. But I would love to be disproved of the above opinion I have put forth. If any of the readers have a counter argument pray you share.