A letter to my parents regarding death

Dear Parents

I don’t know what other people will think of me for whatever rubbish I write but it is a good time I informed you in advance that if suddenly a time comes for my end to begin, you shall never be mourning. Perhaps there will be no time, tomorrow, for me to inform you that I was prepared to die a long time back when I die. Perhaps next moment I would fall seriously ill and my hands might not support me to put my feelings into words to console you. Indeed who would like to die? I always have a dream to linger around you all. I always have a plan to survive in the proximity of your eyes. Every part of me wants to pay my presence in your vicinity. Yet no one is sure of the unplanned demand of the cruel fate to surrender us to the death. Any time, any moment there must come a time when we have to accept to walk the journey of death. No matter how harsh and unbearable marks are left following the aftermath of our disappearance, there is no ability in the hand of the living beings to alter the event of death. Life, they say, is a death in disguise; therefore as long as I breathe life, I shall die. Everyone must die. Law of nature doesn’t allow our eternity. My absence definitely will take you peace and bliss but believe me, if I die earlier than you all expect, think that my need to breathe as a human has come to the end. Consider that God wants me to abandon the world for a better reason. Perhaps he no more wants to me suffer. Perhaps my going is a blessing of god to take another form of life.

I always have been telling you that ,like in the devotional movies we have watched together, our role isn't permanent. I remember sometime when I have told you that like portrayed in those movies of god and goddess that each one of us is born with a prophesy laid by the almighty.(I even gave you an example of Mahisa sur being prophesied by Lord Shiva to be killed only from goddess Durga;other god, no matter how powerful they are, they are to be defeated).Same kind of script exists in reality of we mortals. No matter how fearful demon drags us, we won’t die unless we have been prophesied. If almighty wants, even if I slip and fall lightly I must die. We have been prophesied to die in our own way in the manner He wants us to. Whether falling from a tree or falling off the cliff from a car has to take our life, it is purely god’s design.

This is to let you know, my dear parents that if suddenly there comes a time when I have to leave this world without your knowledge, please be informed that I don’t like you to mourn over my death. Death shall come to everyone. Earlier or later, everyone has to leave this world. I like you to convey you the lines written by Poet Hari Krishna Baral -No one has a desire to die.

“No one has a desire to die,

Yet there is no such time we don’t die

No matter where we escape and hide,

There is no such world where mortals won’t die.

Not always are mortals wrong,

Cruel can be our fate as well.

Even do the tender buds fall off sometimes,

Hence, not always is existence easy.

No one has a desire to die

Yet there is no such time we don’t die

No matter where we escape and hide,

There is no such world where mortals won’t die”

Why doesn't life exist the same for all?

Why doesn't the wick in the same lamp kindle the same?

How unfathomable is the command of fate?

No one knows which will extinguish when!

No one has a desire to die,

Yet there is no such time we don’t die.

No matter where we escape and hide,

There is no such world where mortals won’t die”

Each day I wake up I remind myself that I have been able to live one more day. When I have an opportunity to live another day, I feel next moment could be the end. Any time can be my end. I just don’t know but there certain end. I am always prepared to die for one day or the other I must die. It is the law of nature that death must, one day, fix heavy penalty on our existence.

How I wished I lived by you forever!

Thank you

PremK.Bhattarai

Death, the great

Playing hide and seek between the death and life,

Our fate decides who is to hide and who to seek.

Concealing behind the shadow of uncertainty,

We must hide one day or the other

As much as we have been the seeker.

 As if we have been abducted in disguise,

Death, thus provide the room for you to hide

Where life won’t see you anywhere.

When death fixes high ransom

Against your existence, there is no way left

But to leave you body, for life will have surrendered

Its existence to the death.

We live for once and die for once,

That is the tragedy of life.

Like a fiction with a definite end,

That portrays a story of tragedy or comedy,

Our life is no different;

 And like the script writer in the play,

Your fate decides when to end and when not to.

Like the plot of the play, our roles are fixed

And when it is time to leave, fate beckons

From a distance with voice unheard

As if we are no more wanted in the film,

We disappear from the scene.

Never to reappear.

I shall; I shall wait!

When fate was not with me, there was no hope left. It felt as though I was just chasing a shadow that trickled my vision. The further one step I would take, the extra two steps forward it would go. My hopes and desires continued but my dreams would never come true. I followed tirelessly after the expectations that beckoned me form proximity. Perhaps, I was nearing the point where the destination of my quest. Perhaps, I had a long way to move on before I fainted with weariness. I gave up! I surrendered myself to reality. I woke up from my slumber to embrace the real world.

It was those wonderful times that had brought us closer. A year has passed now. Heavy at heart I recollect those times when we were more than just friends. I was mad for her love. My craze drove me crazier each day I saw her. It was a piece of good news for me to be in her vicinity. A privilege that I would consider being bestowed upon me by the God. Just a mere voice I would hear of her would make my heart beat rapidly. My day would be made with her voice being heard. I was madly in love with her.

Today, we are apart before even becoming nearer the way we wanted to be. We are far away both in distance and feelings. We are like the bank of a river flowing parallel to each with our own contents. Although at times, just disappearing in her thoughts and imagination makes me relaxed but with the hopeless heart, I move on. Indeed there is no other ways than this, too. With the convictions that one day I will be eligible for a happiness that I have ever been waiting for, I let go of my life.

Perhaps better is written on my forehead. Perhaps nothing is written! Whatsoever may be the consequences, I shall wait, not for her but for a better day. I shall wait for a day destiny will unfold its secrets.

A letter to the death

Dear Death,

I don’t know where you are hiding, but I am sure you aren’t away from my life. Life, they say, is a death in disguise; therefore in whatever form you are manifested I, I am never afraid of you. This is also to say that I have started loving you the way I love my life for I know, no matter how reluctant I may be, to hug you, you shall embrace me, somehow. I welcome the way you come. I accept the way you come, yet I have a special request to you.Please, don’t take me whilst I am happy with life. Take me not when I feel life worth living. Take me when I am down with emotions, when I am crumpled shapeless by life. Take me away when the world has enough of me. Take me when you see me living to exist but not when I exist to live. Take me when the world is against my will and ability.

Perhaps you won’t listen to me. Perhaps you will excuse me for sometime as I wish. I have no say. I won’t complain either, for when you lay your icy hand on me, I will have to accept your journey. Your journey, I know will be dark and difficult, but I don’t care! I shall walk with you when life has no need of me. I shall follow your footsteps until where you stop. Drag me or push me, I won’t care, for your kindness shall be my penalty.

Each moment, each passing second, I know you have been watching me and waiting for a right time to make me your slave .Disguising as different adversities, at times, I have felt you visit me and drag me through difficult path, but overcome by my fate you must have been defeated. You won’t give-up, I know. You must have been somewhere around me.

Yes Dear death,

Come, come, come as you wish,

Come, come, come as you please!

I have no fear nor have I any complaints.

I will love you as much as I do life,

For I have no alternatives.

When time comes;when fate betrays me,

I shall be yours.

When you survive in me, I shall die in you;

I shall walk with you until the end,

No matter how harsh you will be,

I will be yours, yours, one time.

I shall sleep with you on the bed you make for me.

I shall eat with you on the plate you give;

I shall be yours for once,

When life will have enough of me.

My Aspiration

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” 
― Kahlil Gibran

.Many of us believe that Success in life depends upon the amount of time we spend shedding sweats, the amount of time we remain awake while the entire world is asleep and the number of times we rise when each time we stumble and fall down. Success, they say, is born to those who are tired but tirelessly struggle to rest only when they get what they want. However, successful people are not only those are industrious and workaholic.  Amid the billions of people existing in the world, they say, there are millions who want to write their own fate, yet mortals are not amongst those who can do this: Only the almighty can.

I come from a middle class family where the family unit has begun to split. It had multiplied in the beginning and now it is getting divided into different unit. As fate wished, gradually is subtracting. I belong to family where luck and fortune has abandoned .I live life where expectations are begging the alms of my aspirations. My aspiration, as an old adage goes, is like ‘swallowing a bone according to the size of my throat’. Unlike many who have greater ambition and aspiration I aspire for something my poor brain think is achievable. Not even in my dream can I look for something I feel big. In contrary Michelangelo Buonarroti says,’the greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” 

Mundane as my life is, I have a mundane  aspiration.Anatole France,in his introductory speech at session of the Academic Franaise in December 24, 1896 maintained, “to accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe”. I don’t know if it appears appealing to the rest of the world but this is something I aspire for. Day in day out I act on it with a belief that one day or the other I shall achieve my dream. Since the childhood to this day, I have been chasing the dream of getting a good and reliable job so that the entire hopes of my parents and the consistent efforts see justice. Mine is a society where everybody believes that getting into the government job is paying for the hard work and fulfilling the hopes of our parents. To get a job in public sector is to expect hearing people talk good of us. Fame, name and status are born out of government job. To achieve this dream is not a piece of cake. The competition is stiff. One has to get through the RCSCE(Royal Civil Service Commission Examination).To get through this I have to work extra hard.

Johann Wolfgang quoted “The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.” Though the steps are tougher, yet I never have stopped moving. No matter if I have to travel on the paved road or on the stony path, at the end of the day, I will make sure I am on track to my fulfilling my aspiration. Mike Norton in White Mountain says, “the true measure of a man is not what he dreams, but what he aspires to be; a dream is nothing without action. Whether one fails or succeeds is irrelevant; all that matters is that there was motion in his life. That alone affects the world.” Therefore, my efforts are relentless and aspiration still burning like candle. They say, we get luckier as we work harder but what fate has in stored for me, I don’t know. I will work as though I could alone write my fate. Thus this is what I aspire for.

.

My elder brother and my life

                                 

“Zindagi ki nindoki shuba ishq hai”(Love is the morning of life).

 “Badi khubu suratsi saza ishq hai”.(Love is the penalty for beauty).

”Hum ko pyaar huwa,puri hiwi duwa”(I am in love and materialized my dreams and desires).

As I lie on my cold bed with the layers of blankets above me and listen to this song, flashback takes me to those days when my elder brother used to be away from home. He used to visit home sometimes during his break. The time when we (My younger brother and I) would hear his coming, we would jump hither and thither with excitements. It was not with expectations of sweets. It was not for anything I can remember. Yet some strange and unfathomable feelings would cause some excitements us. The news of his coming would keep us zealous the whole day.

When he came home from his schools and college, my younger brother and I used to go until the nearest bazaar where the vehicle would stop just to help him carry his luggage. Plunging his left hand into the jeans pants’ pocket he would take out his purse to sponsor us some stuffs to eat. Carrying his luggage, we would reach home and then quickly unfasten the zips of the bags to look for I don’t –know- things

Within few hours of his arrival home, our conflicts would start and endless quarrel would start. Sometimes stimulated by the he –would- do the work notion, we would fight and then stop talking for some time. While sometimes, calling each other by the nicknames, we would debate and then again land up exchanging blows. I admit that I used to be and still am quite stubborn for things I am provoked with. In that context I used to scare him with the knife.

The true thing to tell is that, my parents used to hate me when my brother would be home. My actions and reactions would cause these feelings in them. Perhaps, at time they wish that I was not there among them. Perhaps they were angry with me. Whatever it is, one thing was clear that they disliked my presence and me. My parents would never scold my elder brother.

Soon his holidays would finish and then time would come for him to leave for school. When there was few days left, he would be the most friendly and generous person. He would talk very nicely. He would use sugary words and then allocate works. He would let us listen to the music in his mobile for he would only have mobile. Later I also could buy one.

It is during one of such occasions when he was to leave the next day; I heard this song that made me sentimental. I wanted this song get transferred to me. However that day he said he was busy and that he would transfer in the morning. Soon it was morning 3 A.M and he was to leave at 4 A.M to Phuntsholing to his college. Everyone woke up to bid farewell. Mum prepared tea and we were sipping it. My brother asked.” where is your mobile? Open the Bluetooth, I will send you the song you asked for”. I had almost forgotten but he had remembered. I was moved by his action.

That day he left early but remaining with me was this song that he made me sentimental for the whole day until for few days. As soon as I used to play this song, I would feel strangled and difficult to breathe. Such used to be some days of life. I used to miss him.

Today, we are apart literally. We have become different. We have grown up into different versions of the same source. His aims in life are different. Perhaps he has no time to think about us. Perhaps he is busy with his social and economic life. We remain no more the same. He must have been busy drawing schedule for his own life. I don’t remember him much. At times when I call him on phone, he would pick up and say he is busy. At times he scolds me and asks rhetoric questions that make me go mad. My hope for him gets lost and I feel that I should not call him. I know he is a moody person who keeps changing his mood all the time. When he is happy he makes call to me and shares the good news. I don’t care at all. If he calls me I will definitely receive and feel happy for his happiness. I will laugh for his happiness and cry for his sadness. If he doesn’t call, I shall be the same. After all he is my brother. I know he loves me and cares for me.

True love or rather an unchanged Pledge!

Once upon a time, at one point of life, every couple makes a pledge to each other to survive together through thick and thin of life. To what extent they keep the promise is un- known. Since the time they lose their heart to each other, there is a silent secret promise that says that every day through each passing moment of life; they would travel the journey together until the horizon of the earth.

Time passes at its own pace. Like the continuum of river flow running down never to return, life goes on. Spring comes and gives way to summer. Then the summer to the fall. Thus season changes with each one being different. Love for each other fades. The feelings that once drive the lover crazy subside. Concealed in the craze and extreme feelings is the so called love people are ready to die for. Except for few, in most people, the love that once made them lose their heart to the lover becomes a reason for a divorce. Change is inevitable and so is the definition of love in this modern world.

Today I met one exceptional couple who were in their 70s.The love that the old man showed to his old wife mesmerized me. This gave me a feeling to realize that true love still exists in the word. Even if is not qualified to call true love, at the least, I can confidently call it an unchanged love in the face of changed time.

How caring and responsible they seemed to each other!This kind of love that remains unchanged for lifetime is a rare phenomenon to see.How fortunate they are to be bonded to each other !Their relationship is an example for this modern world where love is considered free;Where relationship is considered like a cloth that one keeps on changing as season changes.

                                     
    I wish them a very happy and  a long life!