Miscellaneous
This is how I die
My earliest knowledge of death goes back to the time I was a little girl. It was a Saturday morning and I think my parents were probably not in a hurry to go anywhere. I remember being half awake as I heard them talking—sipping tea—about death.Prateebha Tuladhar
My earliest knowledge of death goes back to the time I was a little girl. It was a Saturday morning and I think my parents were probably not in a hurry to go anywhere. I remember being half awake as I heard them talking—sipping tea—about death.
My father recounted the way his grandfather had died—the loss of the most important person in his life. As someone who had lived his childhood in greater proximity to his grandfather than his parents, it was possibly the biggest loss for my father. I heard him tell my mother about how after the fire had reduced the funeral pyre to ashes, he had stepped very close to it. The stones under his feet were hot. It was his first encounter with death in the form of the loss of a loved one.
My mother then told my father about her own first experience of recognising death. A resident Tibetan had been stabbed to death ‘by a Former Khampa rebel’ over an altercation about a loan. Others, who were doing the kora at that time, saw the young man fall to his feet, as he said, “agula”, turning to his uncle for help, then perished. The young man left behind a pregnant wife and an uncle, who lost his mental balance over his own helplessness. The story passed around the Boudha Stupa and soon outside of what used to be an inner circle of holy-dom. Children, like my mother had been at that time, overheard elders talk about how someone had been murdered over money matters. Police did a search. No one really understood what had happened. All that registered in my mother’s brain then was that something horrible had happened and someone had died calling for help. It is how she understood death. That it is a place where you call for help from, but there is no real help.
Then I heard my parents talk at length about the strangeness of death. About how it is a point of no-return and how one can never have anything to say to the person after, or to ask or hear. In their memory of their own first encounters of death, I suppose I had had mine.
I recall lying in my bed still, listening to them the entire time, pretending to be asleep. And I remember weeping into the pillow. I must have been around four then. I’m sure I had known about death before that conversation. But it was their revelations to each other that made me realise that there would be a time in my life, when I would never see my parents or speak to them again. That I would not be able to foil it. And that was what I wept over. I prayed hard, like a child only can, for my great grandfather to return and tell us that death had been sealed henceforth and no one would ever have to die again.
I was severely depressed for days following that Saturday. Maybe that’s why I’m plagued by mortal fear. I quickly go into thoughts of people being hurt at all kinds of occasions, especially when I’m anxious. I imagine people dead if they don’t show up while I’m waiting. And there are gruesome mental sketches sometimes. I suppose all of us have our own imaginings and fears related to death.
I know of people who think it doesn’t really matter whether one dies or lives. That we’re all only ‘surplus’, after all. And there are also those who take death seriously; like it is a ritual they were waiting to perform at some point and always preparing themselves toward. Then there are some who think of death as escape from reality; from chaos into calm. That calmness descends upon you like sleep, perhaps. Like something you’ve waited for all your life. Like your entire life was building toward that single point.
One of my favourite poets always talked about death as a friend: A place to go to when life closes. I didn’t understand much of her work growing up, save fascination over how she managed to make death seem like something beautiful, instead of fearsome.
The beauty was taken to another level for me recently, in a song I stumbled upon. Oblivion, by Jerusha Rai (a song open to several interpretations) is smouldering with a deep sense of urgency and wait at the same time. Every time I hear the song, it seems to me like the singer is hailing death. In allusions such as fire, taking off of clothes and masks, of screaming, of beating the chest, of being brave, broken and holy and free—the song celebrates that absolute freedom one can only experience in death. The video takes us through smooth transitions of the sea waves, disappearing footsteps on the sand, falling leaves, forgotten spaces, fishes drowning in water, a bottle of pills spilled on the bedside table—a series of images that guarantee impermanence. And yet, nothing about the song is frightening. It is dark, yet so light. The song has a feel of calm, even as the ukulele strikes chords of melancholy.
And every time I hear the song, I think, death is going to be this peaceful. Then I’m not thinking of the gruesome aspects of death. I’m not thinking of what passes in hospital procedures before, or what heartbreak might follow after. I’m only thinking of the moment of passing, when we transition from chaos to peace. I’m only thinking of that moment of passing into the arms of this one companion who has loved me truly versus everyone else that promised to stay with me for life, but didn’t.
So, while I’ve watched parents often struggle to explain what death really is, I feel like a grown-up child, who has finally discovered the perfect explanation. If I were talking to my four-year-old-self, I’d tell her there’s no need to cry into the pillow and wish for permanence. Because impermanence promises a there, where you’ll laugh like a child and sleep like a baby.