Funerals and Tombstones..

Nothing changes life more, than the sight of the waiting bugler just ahead the road. But then it would be too late to turn back and run. I am not a fan of the concept of death, even though most of the times it look like the most logical and only purpose of life. I am not afraid of MY death or worry about when and how that's going to happen. I get pretty disturbed by the death of others. But then, that is quite logical, I need not worry about my own death, as there will be no more 'me' after that!

The weekend started on quite a bad note as I got news that a friend's' sister passed away. She was hospitalized for a while and things were slowly getting better, but that was all probably part of the final act. I was wondering whether I should go and attend the funeral. I hate going to funerals, especially if its a Christian one. They play these eerie songs out there, which actually make me pretty sick and disturbed. The apocalyptic messages conveyed through those lyrics and the melancholic rendering has given me quite a sleepless nights as a child. I always used to think that when someone dies, you should probably let them go, rather than creating this big drama around the event. The idea of elaborate decoration, amplified music and things like videography in a funeral beats me!

Again, what people do to the body after I die, is nothing concerning me, but I would still like to make a quite exit. But here also, the issue is that its the theatrics around others' death that affects me, and I have no right in telling others how they should treat their dead. If people want to remember the dead, why not keep a beautiful picture of the person and leave the body alone once it has done its purpose! I am not sure why I am talking about death all on a sudden.

I remember a related incident which happened a while ago, when I was searching for a short term project as part of my MBA course. When I walked into an interview room, the person who sat across the table asked me "What would I like to be written as my obituary". I did not have a clue what to answer, but managed to spit out a twisted version of something I had read somewhere about what was written on the tombstone of Osho. Had never thought about it before.. neither did anytime after that. Now if you ask me what is the relevance of such a question in an interview - there was no such project available in the company and he was doing the interview just to satisfy the person who referred me there!

Thinking of obituary and tombstones, "Asshole" would be a fitting and apt inscription for mine! But I have to probably think of a beautiful verse that conveys the message more subtly!