‘Scatter my ashes in places that have
sustained the flame of my life,’ I nudge my children, when questions of
death and the meaningless clutch of final rites enters our conversation. ‘There
is no point in submerging them in alien landscapes or waterways, where my soul
would wander rudderless. My solace is closer at hand, in spaces I’ve roamed
during days of youth, escaping the suffocating over-bearance of civilization.
That would be the ultimate celebration of a sense of place.’
But as life progresses, and unprecedented
change becomes the single constant, I wonder what would happen if our personal
geographies did not survive us; whither our sense of place upon this earth?
Will we become outcasts in an unfamiliar terrain, or will we internalize
cartographies and etch their landscapes across a remembering eye? If none of
them exist till the end of our time, in their entire physicality, in their
life-reviving spirituality, in their emotion-igniting empathy, in their
anti-artificial naturalness, then will our romantic minds not remain their only
record, and our only salvation?
So here I place on record where I would
like my ashes to be flung from the hands of those who have known me, and have
survived me; flung so that the wind scatters them as per its desire, on
landscapes that rustled my hair as I stood knee deep in grassy seas, away from
artificiality, amidst nature …
2 comments:
Yes, that sense of a a landscape that has meant a lot, in living.
Having been petrified of anything around hospitals, disease,suffering and death, I want to donate all organs that can be used, to the needy, preferably women, children from poor or minority communities. That done, I would like the rest to go for medical research to any medical college/ lab.
I know, some would say that would not be a closure to the ones living.
I have been trying to find how do I do that and the racket around organ donation/ acquiring does not make it easy. I believe one needs to specify a place/ hospital/ institution, and how does one do that? In today's world where one does not know where the end will be?!
And there would be a list and organs will be assigned in order. Would the poor and minority make it to that list?
Noble thoughts Anuradhapati.
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