Saturday, November 24, 2012

What to say when someone dies!

"The Death of Marat" Oil on canvas by  David, 162 cm x 128 cm, 1793 , Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium


Let me confess at the outset that I really do not know what one should say when someone dies. I have mumbled something meaningless at times; more out of nervousness and a blank mind than anything else. At times I have kept quite and avoided the subject even at the cost of appearing disinterested. Even when someone close passes away I find words hard to come by. They feel intrusive and inadequate to say the least. My favourite uncle  had an accident  years ago. He passed away after a couple of days in a vegetative state in an ICU.  He died young. What sort of words could have brought relief to his wife and  little children at the time? Decades have passed since. I  still get an empty feeling just by thinking about it. Imagine the pain and emotional turbulence his immediate family went through. Actually we really can not be in their shoes , but we must say something ; most of the times! It is expected of  the living!

 There is a lot of help available in the form of books and even on the internet that teach you the correct etiquette and verbiage that may be used on such occasions. You may do like David did by  painting the picture above about his friend's death.  This will avoid words altogether. They also invented obituaries a long time ago. A formal way of saying the right things and sympathizing with the bereaved. Newspapers are full of such messages and one can learn from it easily. It is noteworthy that most of the obits will use the words like ''sad demise". People who talk about the dead are sad at the loss. You realize that not everyone gets to read their own obits like Mark Twain did. He corrected people by saying that " the reports of my death are exaggerated." He could since he was alive. Most other people are dead when their obits come out. They can not confront you , they can not correct you and they can not object. You have to be balanced. you owe it to yourself.

Even when Osama got killed in the commando raid, believe me it was a sad event. There is nothing happy about it. The fact that you had to kill another human being is  sad in itself. But sadder it was to see people dancing and making merry afterwards.If you look back at the newspaper headlines from  the day Hitler's body was found after he committed suicide in his bunker, you'll not see any  exuberant and graceless words. One could sense relief  that finally the war is nearing its end but no more. But then it was another era. Electronic medium did not exist. TV was in its nascent stages; no one had heard the word internet and no one needed to "trend on twitter". 


I even find the whole chest thumping showoff and harsh commentaries that came out after Kasab was hanged quite tasteless and unnecessary.  He had to pay for his sins and he did it with his life. I can not understand why anyone would not consider this a sad event? A young person who could have been a productive member of society ;who could have been a help to his struggling family and taken care of his mother in her old age, was guided along a wrong path with the result that he turned into a terrorist and a mass murderer that had to be put to death. What's so merry about this that you'll distribute sweets ? Obviously it is difficult to say something in praise of the dead in such cases , but is it so difficult to just zip up? There is a lot of confusion about who actually said " It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt", but it is worth pondering.

Bal Thakre evoked strong emotions when he was alive.  Millions followed him and a lot more despised him. Eventually as is the law of nature he passed away. Somehow all of his intellectual and political adversaries who did not dare to say harsh words for the fear of retaliation when he was alive, came out with strong and  blanket indictment of his life even before his body turned cold! History will of course evaluate Bal Thakre in a  more comprehensive fashion than his critics or his supporters ever can but a sense of balance and dignity immediately after someone passes away is definitely a good idea. Millions are not born and millions do not die everyday. Each of them is an individual and each of them deserve their life to be celebrated and their death to be mourned.

A strange incident happened as well where an immature set of comments by two nobodies on Facebook was considered worthy of arresting them by police. These ladies certainly ought to get some extra help about what to say when someone dies  but it is nothing compared to the coaching required of the police officers who decided to arrest them. Luckily the courts have thrown the prosecution's case out of the window but the officer's  skill levels of policing and threat assessment have proven lower than zero. They should be retrained for a desk job or at least transferred to traffic duty. It would also be wise if they learn the difference between plain stupid, objectionable and prosecutable , when someone says something about dead! It is their job.



 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Loose Change.

Life is a series of changes. Dead things are the ones that do not change. They deteriorate. We all seek change and throughout the ages young men and women have had dreams of changing the world. World does change. It has changed even before my own eyes and it is changing as we speak. The question is what is it changing into? Is the world really a better place than before?

As a young man I believed totally in the power of art and expression. We truly believed that music, drama, paintings and the written word will change all of us into a better human society and balanced individuals. It will enlighten and allow us to have smoother personal and social interactions. We trusted that it will pave the way for an equitable society. We all wanted to be the agents of that change!

That was years ago! It does feel that those thoughts belonged to a stranger I do not know! It was a time when kids would band together and perform "Ramlila" in the local park. Younger ones would insist on buying a 'Hanuman' mask from the vendor who came on a bicycle. Today they all want an iphone. It was the time when a poor student such as myself could invite himself to a performance of Wadali brothers on the lawns of Sangeet Natak Academy and sit next to Shabana Azmi on the grass! Try doing such a thing today! Well, it can't be done any more. There is a solid wall of commerce and security standing between. It was a time when the librarian from their reference library would let me take frightfully expensive art and design books home over the weekend for my assignments on his own responsibility. He was a good soul and he trusted me to bring them back safely on Monday morning before they could ever be missed. He just wanted to help. Internet ensures that students do not need such help any more and trust ...... Let us not even go there, it quite out of fashion!

Younger generation has a constant refrain that older people lapse far too easily into the past. They are right in a way, past is not a good place to linger although It is not such a bad place to visit ! If you see that past troubles are repeating themselves with more and more virulent strains of the same; you've got to dig deep for some solutions. Ram got sent away for fourteen years but when he returned the darkest night was brilliantly lit like a day in his welcome. It is the sign of the times that hardly anyone cares any more if he returns or not; much less give him a welcome. Ram a symbol of respect, truth, love, propriety, equality and care for public will has less and less impact on our personal and social life. Of course we have not forgotten to party hard and long during Diwali.

Sita of public good stands abducted. Ravan of corruption and inequality is still attacking Ram and seems to be winning. Lanka may or may not get burned but Ayodhya is smoldering. This is not what we dreamt ! Launch of windows 8 does not necessarily make this a better world. A new BMW M6 in the drive way does not either. However if every child can go to school and does not have to roll beedi's in a sweat shop, it would be. If we could put a roof over every homeless, it would be a better place. If people could get access to clean drinking water it would be a great change  It is not asking for a lot but even this little requires setting our priorities and ensuring that public resources and lands are used for public good, not for personal profit. Even when we have to sell them, public exchequer must get a fair price for it......... dream; dream on!


Maybe our efforts were not enough so our results are not what we set out to achieve and now life's large bills are mostly spent for people of my generation. Just some loose change remains. But it remains still and I want to be the same naive young man who believed that a story and a picture will change it for the better. It will and it must. Ram had to float stones for a foot bridge over raging seas and fashion a winning army out of mere monkeys. Without minding the handicaps, lack of resources and personal setbacks he pressed on, engaged Ravan and won! Why can't we fight  back with loose change? We may not dispel the darkness entirely but we can certainly light a lamp.

May thousands of lamps light your way. Have a great Diwali and  God bless you all!