Johny!

"Johny's expired", says the mail. Just two words! Have we become so inert that we just mention death without even batting an eyelid? Johny was some distant cousin. She was mentally unstable....some disease in her childhood made sure that she remained a child even at age 30!

Her mother was very attached to her; which mother isn't? Her mother had a lot of difficulty managing her, but the brave woman that she is, never uttered a word ... never a word! And then she cried ... cried for a little girl, a woman trapped in the mind of a little girl. A tear ... it's worth many unsaid words ... and feelings.

I was thinking about it... death no longer evokes the kind of emotions in us as it used to ... I don't know. But I have seen people feel for the dead... there was a sense of belonging with the dead... it's all gone now... just death... death, as if it is the most common thing to happen. The dead die, and we move on! For the so called rich man, Death now only means a will that would give him more of material riches? And for the poor man, an added expenditure, which he would rather spend on his starving children.

I still remember the day she died.... I rushed home on receiving the news that she had collapsed. I learnt later that she had already been dead then! I went only to see her remains... in an ice box. It all looked so strange, as if the dead were not a person, just something .. to be displayed to the world, and that too in an ice box ... such insensitivity

People have only good things to say about the dead, or so they say is the case in India. But people everywhere say the same things. It is as if they have rehearsed all their lives for this one golden moment.

I sometimes worry that humanity has forgetten the value of a human life. The dead are just statistics in the bureau of the government. The dead would be no more, not in this world, not in the hearts of loved ones, just numbers... numbers!

In a single snap of a twig , motion of a wave , flicker of an eyelid….. one single second of an elation precedes an endless era of trauma ……….. pain and finally death !

finally death!