Page 18 - Seniors Today - April Issue
P. 18

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         The Dance of Death


         in the Pirouette of Life







         Our behavioural reality is that we see life as a celebration and death as a
         mourning, writes Nagesh Alai



         All of us, regardless of our caste or              death of all family members save for the
         community or religion or faith, whether            few in the penultimate days of the great
         educated or not, whether spiritual or not,         battle of 18 days. In hindsight, perhaps,
         are conscious of the fact that anyone born         Bheeshma would have regretted the boon of
         has to die. The mystery of living is that no       ‘icchamrityu’.
         one knows when it will be curtain call for          It will be interesting to allude here to the
         the drama of life. Unless of course, one has       overarching approach, albeit contrasting,
         the boon of ‘icchamrityu’ (it essentially          religious beliefs, in faiths like Christianity,
         means control over the time of one’s               Islam and Sanatan Dharma commonly
         death) like the patriarch, Bheeshma, in the        called Hinduism. The judgment day
         Mahabharata, who lived long enough to see          under Christianity or Qayamat under
         four generations of the Kuru (including the        Islam, essentially allude to the day of
         Pandavas) clan go through the vicissitudes         reckoning when a person on his or her
         of life only to see the decimation and             death, depending on the good or bad deeds


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