The fear of oblivion
When I see legends like Muthuvel Karunanidhi (3 June 1924 – 7 August 2018) and Atal Bihari Vajpayee ( 25 December 1924 - 16 August 2018) dying one after another, I wonder how my death would be. These legends in their last years are rumored to have lived with poor cognition and recognition. Their memories gave up on them long before their hearts would eventually give up on them. This inevitability in life scares the shit out of me.
Rene Descartes famously said Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). It makes me wonder when did we actually lose our leaders. When did they really leave us? How long were they gone? At the fag end of their lives were they really present? Or was it just vestiges of their legacies that existed for the willing witnesses to deceive themselves. If you are stripped of all your memories and experiences, are you still you?
What about the economic cost of such futile existence? Resources as always are limited. Is it justified that the rich and wealthy get to live on such borrowed time while there are millions more needy who are deprived of even the basic necessities? Would their conscious and sentient selves have allowed this to happen? Maybe Thanos (of 'Avengers: Infinity War') ought to have been given a say.
I wonder what would have been the right time for them to have departed. Would they really have liked to have hung around in a such a thin thread. For one, I wouldn't have liked to. People view you with pity and condescending look. Would that have really been their preference? Had they been given a choice, would they have chosen that!!!!
That brings me to the central question, "What would be the most right time to die?" Is it fair that you have no control or say in your death? Is it fair that you don't get an opportunity to say a proper goodbye? Is it fair that the we have no say in such an important event of our life? Where are my rights of choice? Where are my right to dignified existence? Where are my rights to live without humiliating(read urinating) myself?
I think which would have been the most appropriate time for them to die. I desire so deeply that I could have died in that bike accident I had last year. It could have been the greatest gift of my life but God(or perhaps fate) did not favor it. It kept me alive so that I can face all this pains in this tortuous life. If I might have died in the bus accident I had the year before it would have been even more better, but then if I was so lucky then my mom would have had a miscarriage in her first month itself that giving birth to me.
But then an accidental death is not a complete gift. You leave lot of things in between. For one, it's like you are were a grenade that exploded right in the barracks. You never reached your destination. The splinters of your existence shatter through and harm those around you. Your friends and family are deeply scared. Sometime they would wish they should never have loved you so much, never should they have cared so much, at least they would have been spared of that gnawing pain.
I have been kept alive to see all those things which I would not have really preferred to see/witness, lest experience them and I am really really really really am afraid what else is left for me in store. What else is fate desirous of showing me. I am most afraid of the day when you might no longer recognize me or me you. That I might become a stranger to you or you might become a stranger to me.
Just like how people and relationships change, so do memories and often memories just vanish. Plenty of causes are there like marriage, hate, anger, ageing, etc...... I am scared of all these...
The Jain practice of Santhara fascinates me. But one requires immense faith to take such a step and undergo such an experience which unfortunately I have not been gifted with. So what is left for the agnostics like me? Shouldn't the state which had succeeded in acquiring the legislative power from the church (read religious institutions) make provisions for us. The idea of death has become a sort of taboo subject with the state not venturing to dwell into the finer aspects of the Right to Die.
The Supreme Court which has been spearheading reforms where the legislature has been dithering and lackadaisical has given two significant verdicts. Firstly, it has struck down Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code which lays down the punishment for attempted suicide. The negative aspect of the judgment is that it views suicide as a purely mental health condition requiring treatment. Is there no teeny-winy possibility that all our understanding of death is flawed? If one is born, you can either live forever or you have to perish. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately medical science has not made immortality an possibility. Thus eliminating immortality as an impossibility we are left with death as the only inevitability. Is it fair that the we have no right to chose the time such an important event of our life?
Secondly, it has allowed for passive euthanasia with some safeguards. Though it has allowed for passive euthanasia, active euthanasia still remains a taboo subject. I am expectant of the day when we become an open society and suicide becomes separate from desperation. If someone after considering all the finer aspects of life, still chooses to leave instead of live, his wish ought to be granted. Perhaps a state sponsored irreligious Santhara is long due. Though SC had acknowledged that we deserve a Right to a Dignified Life under Article 21 of the constitution has not expanded the horizons beyond that.
Rene Descartes famously said Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). It makes me wonder when did we actually lose our leaders. When did they really leave us? How long were they gone? At the fag end of their lives were they really present? Or was it just vestiges of their legacies that existed for the willing witnesses to deceive themselves. If you are stripped of all your memories and experiences, are you still you?
What about the economic cost of such futile existence? Resources as always are limited. Is it justified that the rich and wealthy get to live on such borrowed time while there are millions more needy who are deprived of even the basic necessities? Would their conscious and sentient selves have allowed this to happen? Maybe Thanos (of 'Avengers: Infinity War') ought to have been given a say.
I wonder what would have been the right time for them to have departed. Would they really have liked to have hung around in a such a thin thread. For one, I wouldn't have liked to. People view you with pity and condescending look. Would that have really been their preference? Had they been given a choice, would they have chosen that!!!!
That brings me to the central question, "What would be the most right time to die?" Is it fair that you have no control or say in your death? Is it fair that you don't get an opportunity to say a proper goodbye? Is it fair that the we have no say in such an important event of our life? Where are my rights of choice? Where are my right to dignified existence? Where are my rights to live without humiliating(read urinating) myself?
I think which would have been the most appropriate time for them to die. I desire so deeply that I could have died in that bike accident I had last year. It could have been the greatest gift of my life but God(or perhaps fate) did not favor it. It kept me alive so that I can face all this pains in this tortuous life. If I might have died in the bus accident I had the year before it would have been even more better, but then if I was so lucky then my mom would have had a miscarriage in her first month itself that giving birth to me.
But then an accidental death is not a complete gift. You leave lot of things in between. For one, it's like you are were a grenade that exploded right in the barracks. You never reached your destination. The splinters of your existence shatter through and harm those around you. Your friends and family are deeply scared. Sometime they would wish they should never have loved you so much, never should they have cared so much, at least they would have been spared of that gnawing pain.
I have been kept alive to see all those things which I would not have really preferred to see/witness, lest experience them and I am really really really really am afraid what else is left for me in store. What else is fate desirous of showing me. I am most afraid of the day when you might no longer recognize me or me you. That I might become a stranger to you or you might become a stranger to me.
Just like how people and relationships change, so do memories and often memories just vanish. Plenty of causes are there like marriage, hate, anger, ageing, etc...... I am scared of all these...
The Jain practice of Santhara fascinates me. But one requires immense faith to take such a step and undergo such an experience which unfortunately I have not been gifted with. So what is left for the agnostics like me? Shouldn't the state which had succeeded in acquiring the legislative power from the church (read religious institutions) make provisions for us. The idea of death has become a sort of taboo subject with the state not venturing to dwell into the finer aspects of the Right to Die.
The Supreme Court which has been spearheading reforms where the legislature has been dithering and lackadaisical has given two significant verdicts. Firstly, it has struck down Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code which lays down the punishment for attempted suicide. The negative aspect of the judgment is that it views suicide as a purely mental health condition requiring treatment. Is there no teeny-winy possibility that all our understanding of death is flawed? If one is born, you can either live forever or you have to perish. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately medical science has not made immortality an possibility. Thus eliminating immortality as an impossibility we are left with death as the only inevitability. Is it fair that the we have no right to chose the time such an important event of our life?
Secondly, it has allowed for passive euthanasia with some safeguards. Though it has allowed for passive euthanasia, active euthanasia still remains a taboo subject. I am expectant of the day when we become an open society and suicide becomes separate from desperation. If someone after considering all the finer aspects of life, still chooses to leave instead of live, his wish ought to be granted. Perhaps a state sponsored irreligious Santhara is long due. Though SC had acknowledged that we deserve a Right to a Dignified Life under Article 21 of the constitution has not expanded the horizons beyond that.
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