Death 'Wish': My 'Will'

Death Wish: My Will

‘You are now entering 45’, said my friend on 22^nd December 2014, my birthday. I was born in 1969. ‘So you are middle aged’, he further added with a wink. ‘Forty is naughty and at forty-five you are at the helm, it is peak time!’ It was funny, but unfortunately it did not amuse me. How deeply that day I realized that humour was situational. Interpretation reflected state of mind. Meaning of word depended on the lens worn to see it. Perception cannot be prescribed.

I was confused. My mother-in-law was on deathbed, suffering from cancer. Though she was 68 years, she wished to live forever. And honestly, that is how she had lived till she was detected of that deadly ailment, at third stage. In this one year, she had turned from 67 years young lady pretending to be in mid thirties to 68 years old lady accepting the inevitability of death.

My father had been handsome 48 years, three years older than what I am now, in 1988, when severe cardiac arrest had taken him away one fine afternoon. He had been extremely jovial and warm in the morning, when we had left for hostel, and by evening we met him again- lifeless.

My mother who must have been then 43 years young beautiful lady lived despite her chronic heart ailment till 2009, almost twenty-one more years, remembering each day her lost partner.

Now, how do I ascertain if I am at the end, or beginning or in the middle of the life road? So, that fortunate day of 22 December, was I middle aged, basking in the glory of being at the helm of exciting naughty affairs? Or was I that insignificant particle of this galaxy who foolishly boasted of being the important constituent without which nothing would have existed, and suddenly get reduced to nothing, any-day-any-moment.

I felt it would be humble to be practical. Practicality lay in realization of the fact that days of life are numbered. We try to live as immortals, ignoring truth as an ostrich. So, if life is till we breathe, and our breath are counted, then wisdom lies in being practical. And, practically, if life is perishable then why not pen down terms of departure. A ‘term’ to be termed as ‘will’, wishing my beloved ones to follow once my soul leaves my physical attire.

Again, I wondered if it was practical enough to believe that I have beloved ones who would carry out my wish into action. However, I fancied that it was practical to jot down my ‘wishful will’ without thinking of its applicability, because I am not sure if it would mean anything to me or would be of any relevance, once I depart. Still, I want to wishfully leave my ‘will’ just because in my view it would benefit my dear and near ones, alive, who would give a try to treat me special when that would matter least to me.

Most often I think loud and hence become predictable and transparent. As a habit, getting philosophical with one of my colleagues over his agonizing trough period in the sine wave curve of life, I mistakenly philosophized that life is uncertain and one can meet death at any corner of the life’s journey. ‘Mistakenly’, because immediately I confronted an unexpected question, ‘Do you think a lot about death!’

I told him that I think a lot about life and not death, but unfortunately death is the inevitable consequence of life. Death is the only scientific certainty about human’s behavior, as rest is unpredictable hence unascertainable. So, my thought of life leads me to eventuality of life i.e. death. Life and death comes in package and there is no way to deny either.

 I had been struggling to understand the rat race in life. Everyone, in life tried to achieve what every    other predecessor perished attempting, to either pretend as content and arrogant celebrating achievement, or frustrated with sense of failure. In either situation, neither the pretense remained forever nor did they live for eternity. This race was, of course, an attempt to keep alive the significance of existence. I did not want to be in a denial mode. I too was one of those foolish creatures enthusiastically participating in the race.

 Let me come to the point and enumerate some of my wishes, to be construed as ‘Will’:

·      All possible parts of my body, worth of any use to anyone should be taken/given to the needy. If required, even my cadaver should be left available for study/research by medical institution.

·      There should be no conventional funeral, burnt using quintals of logs. I would like to be burnt in electric crematorium. Let there be no funeral procession with slogans of ‘Ram naam satya hai’. No need to take last remains, ashes, to Ganga or Narmada, or any pious river. I firmly believe in Ravidas’s belief that ‘mann changa toh kathothi mein ganga’.

·      There should be no mourning, even for single day. The life of everyone, including family members, should go on as usual. No rituals to be observed, whatsoever. No shaving of head, no pundits invited, no feasts, no gathering and nothing. I must be remembered as a companion who was there and left for good.

·      As a student of sociology I accept that the purpose of observing rituals is to encourage communal gathering, which is necessary to keep the familial and community bonds alive in society. But, I do not want it to be a coerced gathering, burdening one to host forcefully and others to arrive risking and compromising with many of their prior plans. I do not want to be a cause of inconvenience, just under social pressure.

·      All my fortunes, savings and property should be at disposal of my wife and children. Would always love if they use it judiciously and for the benefit of the society. I will be glad if it is used for education of children, of all sections of society. But, I would not lay down any conditions on them, as they have struggled all through my adventures and I don't want to be judgemental or conditional, whatsoever.

·        My living desire is that my children become good human beings and believe in helping others.

I do not want anyone to think that I wrote all this in depression. I am in best of mood and health, but of course wondering what is life. It is so uncertain. I have all right to decide in consciousness, as to what I wish. I may sound here to be rebellious, revolutionary maverick, moron or, or... I don’t mind being qualified as any weird person. I cannot force anyone to follow it, but if there is any consciousness after life, I will be happy to see my wish respected.

I started virtually in weird manner, by stating that it would be my humility to be practical. In fact, many would consider my ‘will’, as filthy manifestation of pseudo intellectual arrogance. My intention is not to challenge the generational rituals, but to desire what I believe in and my belief is rooted deep in my observation and experience. I consider that Hindu rituals have strong scientific backing. And those scientific reasons were relevant in those days, which can be rethought and reconsidered with fresh reasoning now. My belief is that Hinduism is one of the most scientific and flexible religions. It accommodates and appreciates all hues of life, which is vividly visible through our various GODs and Devtas’.

Here I would like to enumerate my observations and logic supporting my wish.

Observation:

Quintals of wood is burnt in pyre of one person, whereas we have been strongly advocating (forcing) the poor (mostly tribals and underprivileged) living on the fringes of forests to do away with using of wood as cooking fuel. When there is alternative method of destroying the lifeless corpse, surrendering to the panchtatva, (like electric cremation) resulting in saving of our lifeline i.e. trees, why don’t we embrace that.

The use of wood for pyre, earlier, was due to its abundance, easy and inexpensive availability, and absence of alternate method.

Burning body was advocated to ensure that any dangerous germs sheltering in the body is eradicated. Heat and incineration is still considered to be best way of sterilization and wood was the cheapest and available fuel those days.

Now, electric crematorium is better way of saving the challenged environment where we are witnessing fast dwindling forests.

Community mourning, with gathering of people in funeral procession was, perhaps, meant to consolidate fraternity, strengthen the feeling of brotherhood and exhibit the system of dependency. It also encouraged and ensured community to compensate the loss in the hour of need. This logic still holds good to a certain extent in rural areas, where the options of livelihood provides space to maneuver time. Apparently, in urban areas/cities time is valued more than social obligations. The gathering has got translated into a show of strength or an attempt to score brownie points with someone bereaved (exceptions are celebrities or people popular for their exceptional work, which would be practically few in number).

In ‘n’ number of funerals I have attended I have witnessed visitors checking their wristwatch, and cell phones, and worrying about other prior commitments. If the time of funeral gets little delayed they would wriggle out uneasily promising to join the funeral after attending unavoidable important work. I always felt that this ritual had become a coercive social obligation. Anything in this fast track era, which is pain in neck, adding to already existing high level of stress is avoidable. Hence, I wish no funeral procession for me.

‘Ram naam satya hai’ was a slogan to cement the belief that we are all mortals and salvation lies in realizing the fact that peace lies in having faith in the universality of GOD. This also encouraged us to think that materialism would lead us to nowhere, else but to ultimate truth, that is death: fact of life, common to all. Everyone bowed their heads before a corpse as symbol of respect and in acknowledgment of the power of nature, which had its own terms and conditions, which no one could dare challenge.

I think in this fast materialistic and competitive world there is little reverence to logic behind rituals, therefore, it’s practical relevance is challenged. Hence, to people whose thought process is totally eclipsed by their strive to prove and establish dominance over others, I wish abhorrence from imposing this ritual for mere formality sake.

My disinterest in to where my ash would be drained was based totally on few facts. One, I could not understand as to how those white ashes with no remains of me except for burnt, charred few pieces of bones was of any concern to me, as a non-existent. By submerging it in some riverbed I think my irrelevant remains would further pollute already highly polluted water bodies. I actually don’t know how it can be disposed off. I wouldn’t mind if my ashes were buried, underground, to totally decompose it and literally leave it to assimilate with panchtatva. Or, if electric crematorium leaves no trace that would be best. I would leave to the wisdom of those who dispose off the remains in environment friendly way.

Earlier, in agricultural set up people had lot of time to think, hence would get troubled with the loss of a near and dear one.

Perhaps, the idea of 13 days mourning had multiple scientifically explicable cause and effect.

Ø  This would sanitize the ones who were with dead. The cause of death in those days was not very clear due to less pathological advancement. A scientific reasoning would suggest that if at all there was any infection transferred to people around the sick it could easily manifest in this sanitized period of 13 days.

The ‘karta’ (the person who used to perform the final rites) was normally the spouse or eldest son or father, who obviously remained closest to the deceased in any patriarchal family set up. For 13 days the ‘karta’ was asked to keep a distance from everyone, eat nothing oily/spicy so that he could be naturally sterilized. He was further prohibited from consuming turmeric, a natural antibiotic so that if there was any infection it would not get suppressed but get manifested. This was to preclude from later complications, once the ‘karta’ was mainstreamed. He was also not allowed to interact with any visitor and kept aloof. His bed was not to be touched, sheltered in one corner, he was not supposed to wear any formal dress but wrap simple piece of unstitched cloth, which would later be handed over to poor, whose life was of little value in the class driven society.  The best part of Indian thinkers of that era was that they made up with the less scientific diagnostic invention by pure scientific approach in life.

Ø  The whole family residing was asked to observe similar simplicity for two reasons. One to provide moral support to ‘karta’ and second to provide safeguard from collateral damage due to spread of infection in the ambience.

Ø  Conventionally nothing was cooked for the first few days, and food was received from dear ones, as food was the best carrier of any bacteria. This was natural way of sterilizing kitchen.

Ø  To keep him busy continuous rituals were performed and to keep his spirit high and spare him from falling into depression the ritual of hearing ‘garuda puran’ was recited.

Ø  All those ritualistic donations of food, to Mahapatra pundit, main pundit, brahmans’, barber, sweeper, etc was a means of survival of all these group. In those old days, in a strongly occupation based division of caste and class system barter was means to ensure survival of all. Food was also marked for cow, dog and birds (for their contribution in agricultural lifestyle was pivotal: Cow for its multi utility- milk, cowdung fuel, urine as antibiotic; Dogs as guards of the villages and trusted companion; birds as pest controller). Water was to be poured to the roots of peepal tree (which has been proved to be one of the best producer of oxygen). This was scientific method of creating interdependence not only between human beings but also with animals and trees. This was excellent example of symbiotic relationship between human and nature.

Ø  The hair was removed of all those close ones, as the exposed visible hairs are the best carriers of bacteria. This was limited to only males in Hindu religion because males were the only ones permitted to attend the funeral. Women were prohibited to attend funeral. Those days the long hair was considered to be the best asset of the women, a mark of beauty, and perhaps the society wanted to protect it. That is again one of the reasons why the hairs of the widow were removed, so as to prevent the lady from looking attractive to any other male, as remarriage was not a trend (mostly prohibited).

Ø  Males stayed when the body was burnt and there was fair chances that the dangerous germs harboured in dead body could fly and stick to the body of people who visited funeral. The persons who were close to pyre removed their hair. Whoever attended funeral would not enter home after returning from cremation ground unless they took of their clothes outside and took bath. The clothes were immediately washed.

Now, all these points discussed above do not hold any water in current situation. With the scientific revolution there is, more or less, answer to most of the problems anticipated above. And, in this era where occupation based caste system is not pertinent, there is no need for this symbiotic relationship to continue. This should be no further perpetuated to exploit the poor and people of religious bent of mind. Let it be by choice. I would in fact recommend distributing gifts to those who need most, like in orphanages, old age home and other institutions, rather than giving some prescribed people who would be more interested in recycling goods they are gifted with in the market.

The ritualistic feast on ‘tehrveen’ should be immediately done away with, in my opinion. I do not understand this method of celebrated mainstreaming. In my view this must have been a custom practiced by affluent class, who would invite people announcing and celebrating their good health and freedom from all ills of the deceased. Over the years, as means of ‘sanskritization’ (emulate the customs of upper caste by lower caste) this must have been adopted by all caste in the society. Now when these causes of discrimination are no more existing, where people are working in casteless environment, such ritualistic celebration is not required. And of course there are other means to confirm the good health of family members and of course other ways to celebrate.  

My desire is that my family members should start working from day one so that they normalize their life immediately. I would appreciate if they get caught in the cobweb of fast mundane lifestyle, in profession and at home. This suits the current social setting, and is a perfect curative process to forget pain; if at all my departure causes any. I would certainly discourage aggravation of pain through continuous sympathetic words pouring from visitors visiting intermittently at their convenience.

As for my desire to use my cadaver for research purpose and donation of all detachable organs for others benefit, the idea is that there is lot more to be done in scientific world. I would love to make my little contribution to boost this scientific temper. Everyone loves to live long and remain in good health. If my lifeless body can anyway be of help in this effort, I believe I will be elated and proud. I am saying 'I believe' because I know just about life in this body and am in oblivion about life after death, so certainly cannot say if 'I' would be proud of what I desire now, after death.

I have again expressed a weird desire of wanting my children to be good human beings. If someone asks me the definition of good human being, honestly I can admit that I will be at loss of words. It is very subjective term. I have tried to be a good human being according to my own standards, though know not what others think of me, as all will not come and express and share their opinion with me. Let my children too think twice before acting and just see that they do not be cause of pain to others, physically and psychologically. Let them judge for themselves what is definition of good human being, as I did myself.

Now, the biggest challenge lies in supporting my stand of leaving my material assets to my wife and children rather than gifting it as charity. This is a very conscious decision. Because, all through my life they would stay next to me, supporting me through all thick and thin. By all reasoning it becomes their right to use what I possess. However, I would always suggest that if they have enough and do not need my assets, then they could use it altruistically for the benefit of needy persons. But, I want to be clear that I leave everything on their sweet will, as I always have been advocating that values should never be imposed. Hence, even this death wish-will is merely my wish. I do not want to impose my values on any one. I won't anyway be there to force anyone to respect my will.

All my desire is not an attempt to prove that I am rebellious, revolutionary and out of box thinker, trying to belie what is advocated and sermonized in our books. I am merely trying to be practical with an attempt to analyze our rituals from scientific perspective. I am trying to suggest what would be beneficial to sufferers (if any one suffers psychologically due my departure), after I become actually irrelevant to this physical world.