From alive to a corpse!

The transition seems so effortless in the mouth of an onlooker: ''shift the corpse; carry it; cremate the body..." and so on.

It is never pleasant to be addressed as something inanimate and yet, that is our common destiny. A person very much alive to everyone gets reduced to a mere body, almost untouchable, the moment his heart stops beating. 

Paradoxically, death evokes varied reactions in people: from an outburst of emotions to sweet reminiscences to quiet acceptance.  The knowledge that the person will never be amongst us in the way he used to be, that he/she will be transformed into a handful of ash and the stinging truth that each one of us will be doomed in the same way sooner or later - is what arouses the bemused concoction of emotions in us: fear, helplessness, the sorrow of separation, the unearthly hope that there is something beyond death; no wonder we cry, hysterically and heartbroken. We weep for a loved one - the pain is akin to that of being disfigured, as if an appendage has been severed from our lives, and we will never function in the way we used to...

But it is merely the death of the corporal frame.

Death, I feel, is much bigger than that. It is needless to say that death is cruel because it separates us from the worldly pleasures and ties; but death is merciful too, as it puts an end to our tedious lives. People react to the horror and sadness of death - the sight of a corpse, the absence of a being. Curiously, we live and die a little every day. Here's how...

What kills us? Rejection, demotion, deception, among other causes. We die a little every time life is unjust to us - the woman tormented for dowry but forced to keep mum for the sake of conformity to tradition or the man of artistic temperament forced to tow the corporate terrain for the sake of conformity to rat-race!

This death of the soul is hardly ever noticed; in fact, it is deliberately, at times, conveniently ignored because such a death warrants the kind of suffering that no medical insurance can cure. What needs no money needs no mourning.

I am sure, Nirbhaya and many others like her died many times in the course of their lives - everytime a female foeticide took place, or when they were ogled at and held responsible for their own lot, or when they suppressed the desire to catch a late-night movie show in the capital of the world's biggest democracy lest they should become easy targets for lecherous sceptre-wielders. It was not until Nirbhaya had endured the never-ending moments of brutality until she couldn't anymore that the country erupted.

My question to you is: should we WAIT for the death of the flesh - to weep, to miss, to act, to protest, to rise, to see, to reform, to amend, to BE human?