Mourning the dead.

Today while I was fully engaged in my work one of my colleagues in another building messengered me to ask about a person whose demise news had been just mailed across to everybody in office. He was a young lad who accidentally slipped and drowned. I didn’t knew the person and during our chat I just remarked "by now he would be checking in at the heaven's gate or the other one". To which my colleague was shocked at the indifference and cold heartiness of my attitude.

Then I wondered is it really wise to mourn for somebody you didn’t knew; does being in the same office make his/her death more meaningful or worthy of attention. Maybe I am using the wrong words; I should say "make it more of an emotional experience". We humans usually fathom such emotional experience by the point of commonality that bind us; whatever it may be. But how does this death be any different then so many deaths reported in paper each day.

Death in the actual tense is more of a loss for a person we know but for a person we don’t the only loss visible, is the close ones he/she leaves behind. Going through all those thoughts I wondered if we are really concerned or had feelings; do we channel it in a positive way, I mean go out consoling those near ones really shell shocked or maybe taking out time from our busy schedule to pay our respects to the material body which lacks a substance and we never knew who it belonged.

But what also I pondered is why in our culture we mourn the dead. I have seen that in many of the foreign countries when a person dies; it marks a culmination of a family reunion more so like a catharsis for all the family tensions; also they tend to enjoy the time, remembering the good things he/she was known for and celebrating life itself. Isn't that the crux of it all.


Maybe not all!!

For a second opinion I went back to a book Death at my doorstep I read few months back by our very own sardar Khuswant Singh; being a rationalist and over 90 he is the perfect guy to talk on a topic with perspective. In his book he takes a black and white picture and try to embalm colors that we may look at it the second time; and maybe right. The preface starts with a Lord Tennyson poem.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

Before I close I quote lines from one of my all time favorite movie Patch Adams which sums it:

"What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference."