Wednesday 15 December 2010

My Last Word...

We as people, have a habit of leaving everything for the very last possible minute. Especially the more unpleasant of things. Topping this list is everything that is related to death. If there is anything that is certain in all the uncertainty of the future, it is death. Yet in our wishful thinking for a long life, we keep matters related to Death pending; like writing a Will. I think like our lives are our responsibility, so should our deaths be.

So I thought of making a sort of a Will for myself right away.

There isn't much in terms of money or monetary wealth that I possess. But one of my most prized possession is my body. I don't want people to decide what is to be done with it after I'm gone. I want to take the decision myself. So here goes:

Every part of my body, from my heart and brain to the very last strand of my hair is to be used in any charitable way that is possible. Any part of me that can be used to save a life or make a life better or serve the purpose of bettering human existence, should be taken and duly used for the same.

That includes my skin. I know a lot of people think it is gruesome that the skin be taken off the body especially when there are funeral rituals to be done. I'll make it a little easier.

There is to be no funeral. No one will pay any sort of a priest to conduct any ceremony over my remains. Even if the last of my bone can be used for donation or for research, it is to be given away. That is the only way I will be at peace.

If however, my body is mutilated in any manner or is beyond any such use, I want it to be burried without ceremony in some forest or some place without any sort of a marker or tomb stone or anything indicating that my remains exist there. Leave me at peace; to be one with the soil from whence I emerged.

If you wish to remember me, I request you to close your eyes and think of any moment when I brought a smile on your face and joy to your heart. Hold on to that moment; I live in it and through that, I will be with you forever. If I ever meant anything to you, don't cry over what remains of me but try to spread the smile that I gave you.

(I know all of this sounds preachy and philosophical but I stick by every word very seriously. Euphemisms apart, if anyone reading this finds out that my Will is not being carried out as per my wish, I give you the right to intervene on my behalf, blood and relation being of no consequence.)

With this, I conclude.




PS: Photo Credit to hans j. knospe. It is a lovely image I got off of Google Images.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Generation Gap


Generation Gap- A term that has become so cliche that it is almost redundant now. It used to imply the difference of opinion between the members of two different generations. Parents and kids to be precise. Now it has grown between siblings and cousins more than three years apart! I guess it is another appendage of the rapid world we live in.
But it makes me think of how it all began. What the wisdom of the elders refused to understand, the flexibility of the young ones was willing to give a shot. What the elders considered the ‘right’ thing, the young ones discarded as redundant. It spanned from things like clothes, beliefs, politics to jobs, and what is acceptable morally. Generally, each generation refused to shift their stand or try to understand the point of view of the other.
Where the parents labeled the youth as immoral, irresponsible, brash, and arrogant, the young thought that the seniors were too laid back, didn’t know how to get things done efficiently and were hung up on things of no consequences.
I think both were right in their own way.
There were places where the young needed to slow down and even pump up on the morals. But they sure were right in venturing into waters never trodden in the past, about being fearless and courageous enough to challenge the status quo. I think the challenging often grated on the nerves of the elders but if they’d take a moment and reflect, they’d have known places where change was required.
Similarly the elders were wrong in a lot of ways and in more cases than one if only they’d have set their egos aside and objectively looked at the situation, they’d have seen that there was indeed a flaw in the status quo.
That was as far as the story was so far.
But taking a look at the generation after me makes my heart quake. So many of them have fallen prey to the niceties of technology and have become so passive. My generation was rash but at least there was some active force in us. There was kinetic energy that was up to something. I don’t see it in the kids today. They are stuck to technology and treating it more like a necessary life support system rather than an extension to enable work. It is a worrisome scenario. It scares me helpless to wonder what young people will be 50 years from now. But then again, I wonder what different am I doing? Isn’t it something every generation has done? Will what looks like doom to me actually turn out to be our salvation once the gauze of time is wrapped around it? who knows... only time can tell...




Do you have an episode to share? Some writing you'd like me to put up? Send it in to me at 'miilee@rushhourpages.in' and I'll post it here under your name.