Thus, here I am continuing with the ramblings on life and death, as if yesterday's was merely the beginning!
When my thoughts head in this direction, I am often reminded of John Updike's Requiem:
It came to me the other day:So wonderfully has Updike captured a great deal of emotions in such a lovely little simple poem.
Were I to die, no one would say,
"Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!"
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
"I thought he died a while ago."
For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
We are all mortals, engaged in a battle with that ultimate champion of all--death. A tiny miniscule are remembered for a while after they are gone, but a great majority of us will be lucky to be remembered by a handful for even a few days. With many of us, it is, as Updike writes, "I thought he died a while ago"--even when we are alive!
But, it doesn't mean that we merely sit around waiting for the grim reaper to make his presence known. Kalidasa--yes, that Kalidasa--advises that we ought to be reap that profit of being alive. The following couplet is from Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha via Subhashitani...
Yes, go ahead and celebrate the fact that you are alive. Kalidasa said so.मरणं प्रकृतिः शरीरिणां विकृतिर्जीवितमुच्यते बुधैः ।
क्षणमप्यवतिष्ठते श्वसन् यदि जन्तुर्ननु लाभावानसौ ॥- रघुवंश
Death is the natural steady state of nature. Life is an aberration. Wise men realize this.
Even if one is alive for just a second, he must consider himself in profit.
- Raghuvamsha
My celebration, yesterday, included making this:
