Is LIfe Bigger Than Death?

I carry a signature saying, "Life is bigger than death." These are hope-filled comfort words.   When I long for my Mom's hug, and miss loved ones who have left this world, I nestle into this truth.  

The other day I were low, missing many around, and I don’t know if God knew it? While driving that day I tuned in to a radio channel where the speaker was about to share some live events which let you believe that life is really bigger than death. It sounded like this;

It is about:

Writer of many films such as: Aawara, Shri 420, Mera Naam Jokar, Bobby, etc.

Producer and Director to some offbeat films namely: Saat Hindustani, Do boond Paani, etc.

Khawaja Ahmad Abbas, popularly known as K.A. Abbas, also a column writer in Blitz Newspaper, which use to be liked and appreciated hugely by readers.

The days during which he realized that there are not many days left to his life, then he called his secretary Abdul Rehman and handed over him his will. Which, as per his last wish, was decided to read in front of everyone including his relatives and friends only after his demise.

On 1^st June 1987, he said his last goodbye to life. And as per his choice and desire, the will was read after that in front of his loved and dear ones. Some of the paragraphs of the same are as follows:

I, Khawaja Ahmad Abbas, age 73 years, in all my senses, but in the bad health phase of my life, would like to share my thoughts about my life. Many people do not even live for 70 years but fortunately, I lived 3 years more than that. Please don’t grief or mourn on my death. Please don’t shed any tear.

While laying me to rest, please take care of the fact that when you take me for my last journey, from home to graveyard, play Maharashtra Band in front of it. When you pick me up from home, it should be on my friends shoulder. Bring my body to Chaupati near Mahatma Gandhi’s Statute, and entomb me next to my wife.

I don’t know anything about hell and heaven, but in this life I have already experienced what heaven would be like and also I have skilled how hell would be. And that is why I request you all to celebrate my death and not feel sorry about it. And I really want that the people mentioned below should not speak for more than 5 minutes.

1.   Editor Biltz: R. K. Kalanjia (Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia)

2.  Prolific and versatile Urdu writer: Ali Sardar Jafri

3.  Indian film dialogue and screenwriter: Inder Raj Aanand

4.  V.P. Sathe

5.  Roshan Fayal Maulvi (Muslim), Brahaman (hindu), Essai (Christian)

They were the closest to him but they all were allowed to speak not even for 5 minutes, may be because he never wanted his closed one to suffer in any way, neither emotionally nor physically.

Alright my dear friends, please accept my blessings and love.

When do we meet next, or don’t know if we ever meet again or not, but if you want to meet me and speak to me then please turn the pages of books written by me. I promise to meet you there in those books. Alright! Good Bye! Good Bye! Good Bye!

Rest only Love, Love and love.

And that day I could not ask the God to expand my knowledge on the idea more. I’ve graciously offered some keys to more fully comprehend the greatest gift God has given each of us.  The gift of LIFE:

1. Life is a Person, death is not.

2. Because Life is a Person, there is relationship. Another way to describe death is the diminishment or cessation of relationship.

3. Life exists without any reference to death, but death cannot 'seem to exist' except in reference to Life.

4. Out of Life emerges all of creation, death has created nothing.

5. Life is pro-creative and co-creative, death is sterile.

6. Human beings introduced death (un-created Life); it does not originate in God.

7. God, who is Life, defeated death and did so as a human being.

8. Death can be un-done and swallowed up.  Life can only be lied about.

9. Life continues after 'death'.

10. Death will ultimately be eradicated; Life promised!

People Die but Memories Don’t

Death moves about at random, without discriminating between the innocent and the evil, the poor and the rich. The only difference is that the poor usually handle it better.

I heard today that the vegetable vendor had died. The old man would always be in the middle of the grocery market of my locality, selling his fresh green vegetables and if not surrounded by the customers then always busy sprinkling water on the green vegetables so that they stay fresh and attract as many customers as possible.

He’d been there for as long as I remember, and he could be seen at almost any hour of the evening or night, until all the stock was sold. Summer or winter, he stayed close to the vegetables and water bottle to sprinkle water on them.

He was probably quite tall, but I never saw him standing up. One judged his height from his long, loose limbs. He was very thin, and the turban always and perfectly fixed on his head was the sign of his experience in life and so about his old age.

His vegetables were always fresh and always the season’s most wanted. They were not only popular with the old ladies who would not be able to bend to choose the best among the available, as all the Indian ladies do while doing grocery shopping. But they were equally popular with the young females, like me, who are actually raw, when it comes to choosing the best vegetables. Actually that man use to treat all of them, rather us, equally and try to give the best of the lot to all of us. And the best part was that no one have ever bargained with him on the price because they were the most reasonable and also fixed. This was rarely the case with any other vendor in the whole grocery market. On winter evenings, or misty monsoon days, or summery sunny evening, there was always a demand for his vegetables.

No one knows his name. No one ever thought of asking him for it. One just took him for granted. He was fixed as a landmark as the clock tower or a Banyan tree that is there near to the bus stop of my locality. The tree is always being lopped; the clock often stopped. But the vegetable vendor seems less perishable than the tree, more dependable than the clock.

I don’t know if he had family or not, but in the way all the locality was his family, because he was in continuous contact with people. And yet he was a remote sort of being; always polite, even to children, but never familiar.

Did he enjoy being alive? I wonder now. He was always smiling, but I doubt if he was a joyful person; but then, neither was he miserable. I should think he was a genuine stoic, one of those who do not attach overmuch importance to themselves, who are emotionally uninvolved, content with their limitations, their dark corners. I wanted to get to know the old man better, to sound him out on the immense questions involved in selling the vegetables all his life; but it’s too late now.

Today his dark corner, which use to be the green and the most crowded corner of the market earlier, was deserted; the old man had vanished. ‘He died in his sleep’ said the neighboring vendor. ‘He was old’. Very old. Sufficient reason to die. May the soul of the stranger, yet so close, rests in peace.

But the corner is very empty, very dark, and I know that whenever I pass it I will be haunted by vision of the old vegetable vendor, troubled by the questions I failed to ask.

That is why, the memories are like the sky full of stars, so beautiful yet unreachable. We can look at them and smile but couldn’t complete the urge to get closer to them. May be that’s what the memories hold. The power to put the heart in craving.