The Short Obituary

One of the finest of the state passed away, a true gentleman and an extraordinary human being, a nationalist and a true son of the soil of Punjab. I did not know him personally nor have I ever met him but always read about him being the soft spoken, gentleman in politics and well we all know about his journey. What makes me sad, is the few lines of obituary written about him in the papers and the last lines being that now the Barnala dynasty is not fighting any elections in the forthcoming Punjab Dangal.

Is one just reduced to this? It could be any one, and the long journey is just summed up in a few words and if you’re lucky they might write a long paragraph for you. All our lives we strive to achieve a lot, from the day on one is born our parents, grand parents start dreaming for us, planning and chalking out a future for us. The journey starts with getting admission in the right school, striving for the perfect grades and then getting admission in the best university and making a career with money, laurels and the most important fitting into what the society tags as successful. This according to me is the worst trap of all. The tags are what trap us, weigh us and shackle us.

This path is strewn with one getting stuck again in the same cycle as one’s parents, wife, children and dreaming about success, fame for them. What do we come on this earth for? Why do we take birth? What is karma? Is our existence so cheap, that we are born, live an inconsequential life and we die and that is it and we are then photographed and hung on the wall, with a garland around us.

Ninety percent of the time, one is spoken about in crying, kind tones for a week or so and then life takes over. The trend these days change is to making a remembrance pages that sees a flurry of activity in the first month or so and that also ultimately dies a virtual death. Some kind people make a whatsapp group to remember the departed soul and to reminisce about him or her but in the fact it is more to be worried about one’s own mortality. We go through the routine tests to check our parameters and then take action all to prolong our lives on earth.

Why are we so fickle? Why do we not learn, from the dying? Isn’t, death the best teacher? We fight, strive, to collect material possessions, money, position, power and accumulate more and more money to fill a greed or need that has no answer or limit but is fanned by more and more luxuries!

I could go on and on about this, but today finds me gloomy about the purpose of life. The giants have gone, and they all leave behind great shadows and imprint. But, do we learn from them? They also came, lived extraordinary lives and surrendered to the success of the nation and state.

Today makes me think what would be my obituary? I think coffee and books and as they say she was an aflatoon.

Imagine, three words and that sums up your life . Have you pondered what yours is ? It’s nice to do some soul-searching and unmask what defines you . Maybe , that would help in changing us all .