Thursday, May 25, 2006

A dying wish

One of my favorites, Anand was coming on television today. It was towards the end when Rajesh Khanna was about to die a painful death thanks to cancer. Undoubtedly it was a touchy moment.
Just then I imagined myself dying a painful death. Infact I imagined myself dying many kinds of deaths. I checkout out various forms of it. From falling of a bridge to being in a plane crash to slipping in the bathroom and smashing my head on the sink to getting a heart attack to passing away silently in my death. I imagined them all. Admittedly, there was nothing funny or romantic in that.
Like probably everyone, I have in the past, imagined what’ll happen to the people who care about me / I care about when I die. I have imagined the pain of the loss. I have also plotted what all I’d like to achieve before I die. However, not surprisingly, I have never imagined the actual moment and experience of dying. (after all it is difficult to imagine such a thing when u can only feel it once). And let me tell you, it was definitely not a pleasant experience.
I mean to my imagination, a heart attack or a collision of one’s head with the bathtub which result in his/ her death must really be painful. It’s not like I’m afraid of pain. After all, anyone who’s ever been to a dentist can proudly proclaim to have tamed the beast. But definitely something as powerful as killing you must be painful.
On the other hand, I also somehow cannot comprehend passing out peacefully in sleep. I mean if I am sleeping, and suddenly something starts hurting, I immediately wake up! So how come when you get a heart attack or something resulting in your death you don’t wake up instead just happily pass on? This I cannot understand. Nonetheless, although less painful, it seems like a dull alternative. No drama. No last words. Boring.
Maybe it is alright not to imagine that moment. There’s no point in imagining something you absolutely cannot do anything about and don’t even know when and how it will occur. It only makes you afraid of dying. Afraid of the inevitable.
As for me, imagining such scenarios provoked overwhelmingly existential and belittling emotions. I thought it would be quite pointless to live a very nice (moral, generous, honest) life and then be eventually crushed to pieces under millions of pounds of rubble thanks to some lunatic Islamic extremist flying a plane into my building. (I hope they atleast get grounded in hell)

"It's not that I am afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens" - Woody Allen

1 comment:

SG said...

How about watching the Fite Club once again ?