Death - a discontinuity hard to deal with

24-06-2018

In the last few weeks, I lost two friends. Both deaths were deeply tragic and "untimely". First, my good friend from our apartment community, a wonderful tennis player, swimmer and human being - went in for a routine gall bladder surgery and about a week later died in hospital from complications, leaving behind his distraught family - his wife, 8 year old daughter, his sister and his aged parents. He was the anchor in the family. The last time I spoke with him, he was sitting on a bench next to our swimming pool, writing in a notebook. We chatted for a few minutes under the warm sun. The next time I saw him, his body lay cold at the cremation grounds.

Then a few weeks later, two members of a family - a family very close to my sister-in-law in Dubai - met with a tragic accident while they were on vacation in Georgia. A beautiful Sikh family of four. Two wonderful smart and confident young boys.  A successful business executive married to a woman who spent an incredibly active life of service to her community and her Gurudwara. Last year, when I urgently needed help to reach out to students for our edu-tech venture, they invited me to their home and connected me with their friends. I remember the ride she offered me from the metro station to the Gurudwara and the coffee he had with me on a weekend - despite his many commitments.  And then 10 days ago, he and his younger son died while on a bike in the mountains. They fell off a cliff. A distraught wife and older son, were with them at the time of the tragedy, left alone to cope with this unfathomable loss in a foreign country...

Discontinuity.

A few days later not a trace.. only thoughts that seem so real. You can see their face, you can hear their voice, their laugh.......so real and yet....

All the plans and dreams they had abruptly changed.

Families and close friends in a state of shock, grasping at straws to try and make meaning out of this.

The most common refrain, "how can stuff like this happen to the nicest people?".

The wiser seeking solace in the scriptures, "It's God's will. All we can do is surrender. The soul is eternal. The soul is at peace. Time will heal..."

In the Mahabharatha, Yamaraja, the Lord of Death asks the King Yudhisthira, "What is the most wonderful thing in this world?"
The wise King replies,

ahany ahani bhutani gacchantiha yamalayam

sheshaḥ sthavaram icchanti kim ashcaryam atah param

"The most amazing thing is that even though every day man sees countless living entities dying, he still acts and thinks as if he will live forever"

So foolish are we all then, to think that death is for the other and not for us. It is foolish for us to think that it can't happen today.

While these families are trying to cope with their loss, there are millions at the other end of this colorful carnival of life celebrating FIFA 2018. Ironically, as FIFA reaches a feverish pitch - Will, Era and Nicky tell us "One life, live it up, 'cos we got one life". So all we can do is live every moment to the fullest NOW (whatever that means to us) knowing it's going to end..... and the biggest mystery of it all is we just don't know when...

Peace Love Light

Hansa-ben - Jhansi Ki Rani

Hansa Ben - (06/07/1938 - 13/09/2017)

Jhansi ki Rani - Iron Lady – that was how she was known to friends and family. What a zest for life, this short woman barely 5 feet tall. The word “tired” didn’t exist in her dictionary. "I don't know what's wrong with you all" she would tell us when at the end of the day we would be ready to call it a day - she would be full of energy and ready to go on.

She was the embodiment of courage. She was the rock of Gibraltar for my father - supporting him through his tumultuous career years as he setup a pharmaceutical business against all odds. An unlikely pair my parents - my father was from a humble background from Goa, who moved to Bombay as a teacher with little but an enormous hunger to succeed - my mother was the daughter of a well to do Jain family in Bombay. If you drew a table with their names on it - it would be a table of opposites: he was tall, she was short:  he was a man of the heart, she of the head; he needed fish every day, she was a strict vegetarian; he was financially struggling, she was well off…. and yet, thanks to their unlikely union, well... here I am.

My mother was born fearless. In school she fought off those who bullied her elder sisters, she did the unthinkable by eloping with my father at a time when even one of those differences would be enough to kill the marriage. She paid a heavy price - she was disowned by her family for a decade! When my father's business began to finally pick up she would drive him around - oddly my father never drove a car in his entire life. My mother whose feet could barely reach the pedals of the bigger cars of those years would confidently sit on a cushion... As age progressed and her eyesight and hearing dimmed considerably, her confidence remained undiminished. Her courage was rooted in her spiritual belief - the immortality of the soul. If you asked her how she was even in the midst of her greatest trials, she would inevitably reply “I’m fine”.

I have never seen anyone with her tolerance for pain. She never complained even when she was in great pain. She had no fear of death. She was fanatical about her daily routine of prayers. She was able to sit for long periods of meditation. Every Saturday she would visit the Jain temple (Derasar) and Hanuman Mandir, where she made it a point to feed the cows and ants - yes, ants!  

Her final act of courage, one that will be etched in my memory for ever happened in the ICU a few weeks ago. She had been admitted to the hospital for a bad chest congestion that had put a considerable strain on her already weak heart. After a week of treatment - ICU and room, she was finally discharged. Dressed in her home clothes, we were waiting for our car to reach the hospital. It was delayed. This was the day of the terrible Mumbai flood. My car was stuck at Worli and couldn't get to us. As we waited impatiently, discharge papers all done, she had a cardiac arrest before my very eyes in the room. The emergency staff rushed to administer CPR. I was asked to step out and the doctor came to me a few moments later and told me that with her heart condition and age, there was no hope....but the Jhansi ki Rani would have none of it. The doctors found a pulse, rushed her back to the ICU and put her on the ventilator. When in 2 days she miraculously came off the ventilator and was in full consciousness, I was in for a rude shock. As I walked into the ICU, she glared at me furiously, "hemu, WHY did you bring me back? Take me home now! You are afraid of a bit of rain!?" I said "Mamma, do you even know what happened to you? And it was one of the worst floods ever!" I was like a little child being chastised by his mother. But this time I was glad for it. "I want to go home" she repeated again and again. And finally a week later, we brought her home. How happy she was. Very weak but happy. She had a glow on her face. I often remarked about this to others - she looked so beautiful the last few weeks. 

And then a week later, she passed on peacefully in her sleep. The doctor had warned that with her heart condition, it could be anytime, but we had hoped the fighter in her would give us a few more years. But it was not to be. Condolences poured in  and the recurring theme was "What a zest for life”, “what a gracious and courageous woman", “always smiling”... That was my mother. Hansaben.

The Fine Art of Loafing

More than 15 years in the corporate grind and I found myself questioning, "What the beep are you doing in life?". The last few months the answer that came resounding back was, "I have no freakin' clue. But I know I'm not loving what I'm doing. I don't know what I should be doing. But this is definitely not "IT"". So I quit and began an active search for "IT".  Pretty much the classic midlife crisis. I talked with my buddies. Saw the exciting, explosive growth with app startups everywhere, and felt I needed to be a part of this. I mean if you're not doing an app, you're just not with the program! Suddenly there were a dozen options. But nothing really resonated deeply. So I decided to just take some time off to relax, think about it and well, just NOT think about it....

And it was tough. I mean tough! The first few weeks there were withdrawal symptoms. In my case, it manifested as a pseudo-imaginary disease. Once that was behind, I decide I'd be better off taking up consulting offers - you know - just so I don't "lose touch".  I also made a prodigious list of things to do - mundane things that I've procrastinated for years now - file taxes, get online parental control for my kids, clean up my closet, etc. I got going on these with a passion that made my family cringe and pray, "When is he going to get back to work?"  But it wasn't all work - there was the fun list - you see - read a book, improve my tennis backhand, party, catch up with friends (shame on me), go on a soul searching pilgrimage.

And then a buddy of mine gave me a book called "The Importance of living" by Lin Yutang in which there was one chapter that just grabbed my attention. Now you see I am a pretty spiritual guy - I meditate daily, practice mindfulness and all that good stuff. Just get me started on Eckhart Tolle, Ramakrishna, Gibran or Yogananda and you'll have a really hard time stopping me. Some of my colleagues would head the other way when they saw me approaching, lest I unleash a Zen story on them.  And so I was surprised that this little gem had evaded me so long.  The chapter was, "The Importance of Loafing!" and believe me....he's not talking  bread here. 

Amazing! Here I was scurrying along like a rat (even without my corporate wheel) when all I really needed to do was this. LOAF!  My only goal now is to become the biggest and best loafer of all. Folks should bow their head in reverence and whisper in awe as I amble by, "Wow!- there goes one of the biggest loafers of our time!".  

So move over Nike - it's time to "Just Be".  If you're finding no pleasure in work, then listen to Gibran,  "Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy". Join me at the gates of the temple. Or if it's just that you're overworked, please PLEASE get some rest. Heed the counsel of Ovid, the Roman poet, "Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."

Well this is it for now. This is way too much hard work. I have some really important loafing to get to......