Accepting and celebrating death is
an important aspect of learning to live intelligently.
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| Picture Courtesy: Internet |
Cricketer Phil Hughes’ tragic accident on
the field, and his passing away so suddenly, has shocked the entire world.
Cricket Australia (CA) has confirmed that the first Commonwealth Bank Test
Match between Australia and India, scheduled to begin on Thursday, December 4,
2014, will now be rescheduled. CA says three of its senior players, Shane
Watson, David Warner and Brad Haddin, are among those who have said that
they are not in the perfect state of mind to return to competitive cricket.
Now, contrast this view with those expressed by two former Australian captains,
Ian Chappell and Mark Taylor. They feel next week's first Test in Brisbane
should go ahead as it would help the cricketers and the fans to come out and
share the loss of Phillip Hughes. Taylor feels it will be difficult for the
players to deal with the massive loss but “cricket is probably the best
medicine to heal the pain”. Chappell, too, echoed Taylor's views, saying going
back to the game is the best way to deal with the loss. "In a strange way
I think it'll be best for the players if they play the first Test,"
Chappell was quoted in an agency report. I tend to agree with Taylor and
Chappell. When someone dies, the best way is to celebrate the person’s Life –
and what she or he stood for. To Hughes, cricket was his Life. And what better
way to celebrate his Life than play a fascinating game of cricket?
I remember how Carnatic musician
Nithyashree Mahadevan returned to singing within a couple of months after her
husband committed suicide in 2012. The famous
Chennai music season was on then and Nithyashree was booked to sing various
concerts through most of December 2012.This sudden development shocked everyone
and most definitely Nithyashree. The pictures that appeared in the media made
everyone’s heart go out to her. They showed a forlorn, distraught Nithyashree
and most people, while sympathizing with her, wondered how she would cope. But
just two months after her tragedy, Nithyashree was back on the concert circuit.
She was singing better than she had ever been. And, most importantly, she was
not in grief. She presented a picture of complete acceptance and inner peace. I
remember The Times of India carried a
picture of her singing at that concert. The picture was captioned ‘Like A Song’. Indeed Life’s like a
song. It has to be sung, and sung well, no matter what’s going on! What Nithyashree
has done is truly inspiring. She has shown all of us the way that we must
continue to live our lives, doing what we love doing, irrespective of what
happens to us.
I believe that
the human ability to cope with death is hugely crippled by the way society
treats death. Death is not some gory end that society makes it out to be. It is
the only thing that you can be certain of in Life. If you are born, and are
alive, as you are, you will die. Period. So, you must learn to accept and
appreciate death. Every one of us will die. In fact, we are all speeding
towards our death, albeit at different speeds. So, death must be accepted as a
logical end, and, as some would believe, as a new beginning, of yet another
journey through another unknown. But let’s not lose our focus in
over-intellectualizing death either. Simply accept death as a reality. And do
everything that you can to celebrate the Life of the person who has died in
your midst. Do not grieve. Do not mourn beyond a point. Recognize that death is
inevitable. Take inspiration from those who live in the slums of Chennai.These
people get drunk and dance as they go to cremate their dead. Reason, as one
rickshaw-puller once told me, “The dead have been liberated from living on this
planet! And that calls for a celebration!”
Wise words those
are. And we will do well to learn from them. For, only when we accept that
death is a constant, an unavoidable, non-negotiable part of our Life, that we
will actually begin to live fully! And only then will
we learn to celebrate the lives of those who are no longer with us!
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