Newspaper reading has been my second nature of being alive, after breathing. During this month of December 2023, I have been reading in newspapers about the death of people who were young, too young to die. School-going children, college-going boys, young adults pursuing a profession. I am not thinking of those who died in accidents on roads or those who drowned in rivers, seas or pools. I am thinking of those who die these days rather prematurely due to, what doctors call, natural death — heart attack.

Karnataka and the film-world got its first paralysing shock about the ways death may come to a person, suddenly and stealthily, when our Kannada film world’s popular hero Puneeth Rajkumar, a health freak and buff, gentle and always smiling, who loved all and also served the poor of his fans, passed away in the year 2021, at age 46. The cause: medically diagnosed as heart attack.

Reading this kind of premature natural death, I contemplate about its nature. Why and how of its occurrence. It is inscrutable. It has defied even the scientific and medical scrutiny. Here death comes like money that comes out of Any Time Money (ATM) — Automated Teller Machine (ATM). We can call this tragic phenomenon of early death as Any Time Death (ATD). Only difference is that while in the ATM money comes when the ATM card holder wishes to draw money; in case of death, it comes when the ATD card ironically gets auto-activated by God. Therefore, we continue to live by the decree of fate till we are stricken by this kind of phenomenon of death.

Some attribute such deaths to one’s Karma which in the Hindu spiritual world is a Law like the Law of Gravity in the material world. Just as one cannot defy the Law of Gravity, one cannot defy the law of Karma. However, we despair at these premature natural deaths because they come without a presentiment of the coming horror.

Our experience tells us that we are not sure of our time on this earth and we should console ourselves with the wisdom of Socrates who said, “We only know this, that we know nothing.” No matter what the Holy book or the scripture we read says.

In Katha Upanishad, there is an episode where one Vajashravasa gave all his possessions at a ritual sacrifice out of desire for Heaven. His intelligent son Nachiketa saw his father offering only useless cows that were too old to give milk and thought that such an offering would not help his father get to Heaven. So he offered himself saying, “Father, to whom will you give me?” He repeatedly asked thrice as his father was silent and then Vajashravasa answered in anger:

“I will give you to death.”

And Nachiketa goes to  death. But before going he tells this to his father, “Remember how the men of old passed away, and how those of now living, in days to come, will also pass away: a mortal human being ripens like corn and like corn is born again.”

The rest of the episode where he confronts the God of Death, Yama, their dialogue, Nachiketa wanting to know the secret of death from the God of Death are not germane to my musings on the death of young here.

The question staring us in the face today is why the God of Death is not allowing the corn to ripen before it is harvested by the God of Death?

Anyone would agree that age 53 is not an age to die to a working person with good health. But he dies. How? Yesterday’s newspaper carried the news:

Prof. Sameer Khandekar, age 53, collapsed and died while he was addressing the old students of IIT-Kanpur. The cause of death: heart attack. Curiously, the subject of the lecture was about keeping good health.

In another case, also reported yesterday, a boy of 23 years age, Jatin, hailing from Haryana and working in Bengaluru, died of heart attack on top of the highest peak in Kodagu, Thadiyandamol, while he was on a trekking  expedition with five of his friends.

Again in another case from US, one Neel Nanda, the US-based Comedian of Indian origin, aged 32, died, though the cause of death and date were not revealed. And there could be such deaths like the detaching of corns before they are ripened.

John Donne, the english poet might have written the famous poem ‘Death, Be Not Proud’ but it is more of a solace to those whom the departed has left behind. The sting of death is a fait accompli and leaves those left behind in despair, in trauma, specially when they die young.

Now what about those who die at an age like well-ripened corn (to borrow the metaphor from Katha Upanishad)?

A few days ago I saw an advertisement in The Hindu, Chennai and it must give us the answer. Much as I would have loved to reproduce it here, I refrain. And that might be the way many would have liked their obituary announcement to be. The man died at age 103. A smiling face with holy ash mark across the forehead, with eyes twinkling, attired in saffron jubba over the torso, was looking at the reader directly in the eye.

The uniqueness of the text, of course, takes the cake, as they say. He was described in his many roles as a human being — son, husband, father, grand-father etc., etc., as he was called in their mother-tongue (Tamil here), mentioning his interest in art, literature etc., and ending with sanyas. But the creative genius of the writing, like an advertising copy writer, emerges in the text published here below, seeking the author’s indulgence for any copyright violation:

“(He) enjoyed vengayam sambhar, paruppu usilli, hot filter kappi, bajji, pakkoda, chocholates, badam halwa, et al… with a twinkle in his eye, till the end. Lived well, ever ready to provide Chitragupta a detailed account of his purposeful life.”

At  the bottom of this advertisement, or rather the announcement, is the names of two persons who are not identified.

“Enter Heaven my most venerable soul,” would be the refrain of Chitragupta, the keeper of dossier on new arrivals of souls from earth for the God of Death Yama. As for Nachiketa, he might still be listening to the ‘Secret of Death’ from Yama Dharmaraya beginning with Atma, the ties that bind this Atma (spirit), how to set this Atma free etc., etc., till one day he too reaches the age of 103. Did you get me Steve?

Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi

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