An Encounter with Death

 (among the scraps which I have carried over  through the transition to "the new life", there was this vestige from "the old life" - something which I had written when I was just about 26yr old, on May 6th, 1981, to be precise)

When I returned from the office, the postcard with a torn corner was lying on the floor. "It is with deep sorrow that we inform you of the sad and untimely demise of Mr Ashutosh Kumar…" it read in an impersonal bureaucratic tone. As if the message deliberately aimed as dissociating any personal meaning from the words.

I sat down, numb and uncertain. When you are middle-aged and an old friend dies, the feelings are mixed and confused. Emotions rushed forth within me and tripped over each other. A sense of triumph for having outlived him, a feeling of guilt for feeling so, for being alive while he was dead, a sense of despair, of time and life slipping away from between the fingers, of one's own mortality - all these combined and prepared a curious blend of crooked emotions.

Ashutosh was an old friend since the hide-and-seek and marble days. We had grown up together and learned the strategies of living through common experience. Though time and adulthood had drifted us away into different compartments of life, the bond of a common past had somehow lingered through occasional new year and birthday cards. And now he was dead and it felt unreal.

Death makes so many things unreal. There were so many irrelevant, yet magically significant experiences Ashutosh and I had shared with each other. Somehow, this commonality of our memories made me feel my past as more real, more concrete, more secure. As if I found a comforting validation of my life in his memories. But now, those memories were gone, irrevocably lost, with Ashutosh, and along with them, the objectivity they rendered to my past. My memories could well have been my autistic fantasies.

Mechanically, I got up, mixed myself a drink and lit a cigarette. I was awed by the change in the meaning of death over time. When my father had died, and that was nearly twenty years back, I had accepted his death as natural, as the logical conclusion of a life lived. I had acted like a realist, had accepting the inevitable, and had efficiently managed the rituals of his last rites, the bank account, policies and the certificate. I had felt myself grown up and his death had been my passing test into the adult world and maturity.

But now Ashutosh was dead and what I felt was an empty hole in my life-space. Death, after all, I reflected, is not the conclusion of life. It dogs through the every step of life and takes one by surprise. It had struck me now, but I will go on living. A little less, perhaps, for a portion of my life was dead with Ashutosh. Perhaps, that is why we mourn death, because a part of us dies with others - just as it had lived with others. I wondered if life - my life - was only a summation of its pieces that lived and would die with others…

My eyes looked through the windows. The sun had gone down and sky looked gray and dusky. In a few moments it would be dark. I looked toward the approaching night and tried to accept its inevitability…

 

 

****

of thresholds and passing of a season...

 

Last 3 decades or so, this was the time of the year when I used to be finalizing course schedule, readings, making session plans and note, etc…. and in more recent years, also posting pics such as these on FB to curse the students to spoil my idyllic life and to warn them.

This year too, the session is starting mid-June. But I had my last class @ XL on Dec 17^th, ’21, and so this year there is nothing to post (except this) … and now it is sort of sinking in that this 30yr old seasonal cycle is coming to an end
(I am still with XL till end of June when  hang the boots)

…mixed feelings

an eventful day, 44yrs back.... when a journey began

 44years back, it was an eventful day…. Excerpts from the diary:

--
On the5th, everything worked out according to the plan....I went for a walk and saw Geeta's rickshaw on Mandir Marg - that was the last hurdle...

...Papa had left for office, and only my brother, bhabhi and Amma are at home. I called Amma and asked her to sit down. "कुछ बताना है"

“तुम जब ये कहते हो तो घबराहट होती है”, she joked, “you say quite serious things in a casual tone like you may say that you and Geeta are going to get married.”

“That is exactly what I am going to tell you”

 “Where?” Amma was suddenly serious.

“That doesn’t matter. I am leaving and we are getting married.”

.....Her initial reaction was “ये ना करो”. But I explained…. Once the point was driven home, Amma accepted. She asked me to wait, went to her almarah, took out and gave me an अंगूठी” and ‘सिन्दूर’ (which we didn’t used) for Geeta. I then told them the venue of the marriage, invited them, gave a note for Papa, and left…

---

My parents/ family could make it to the venue – as did many of our IITK friends… Geeta's parents could not, which now I feel was such a loss - but Uncle had already gone to work and finding a taxi between Lucknow and Kanpur on a short notice was not so easy during those days
...but so a journey began...

This was our "status update" that night

PS: looking back, we were such 22-23yr old kids then, but it worked out fine till it lasted...

नहीं, ये रात अँधेरी तो नहीं है इतनी...

इसमें सूरज भी पिघल जाता है पानी कि तरह
चाँद भी ढल के दुबक जाता है धीरे धीर
दूर हो जाते हैं, खो देते हैं कुछ अपनों को
मगर, ये रात अँधेरी तो नहीं है इतनी...

इसकी कालिख में छुपे रहते हैं अब भी तारे
काली चादर के उधड़ते हुए किनारों में
टिमकते रहते हैं; रोशनी कम है मगर बाकी है
अभी, ये रात अँधेरी तो नहीं है इतनी...

जुगनुओं की चमक अभी भी बाकी है
भोर होगी, सुबह अभी भी बाकी है...