Life's Grave Ending.

The biggest paradox of life is death, in fact that is the only certainty, the only guarantee we're given when we come to this world, that you will leave. Sounds like a mean prank played by someone, you come here, you build a life, you build relationships and before you know it, you're lying in the dark waiting for yourself to decompose (burning to ashes and being eaten by fish is also a possibility). I am distressed as to how seriously I should  take the ordeal of death considering its so common that each and every one of us gets it sooner or later. I remember this play of Shakespeare in which he builds it up to the point the protagonist's love dies and without giving the audience a real chance to grieve for the loss of poor Ophelia he employs clowns as grave diggers putting in comic relief at the expense of her death. I thought hey, maybe death isn't that serious of a matter, but upon close scrutiny I found otherwise. 


I have lost people in this life and so I understand that it doesn't matter how certain death is, its still sad business and perhaps Shakespeare was mocking society for making such a joke of the situation, for they discuss something that was earlier soliloquised with utmost seriousness and now he injects dark comedy in the play. So as "all the world's a stage" I guess there are those amongst us who decrease the intensity of death, by making 'logical deductions' which to me seem most illogical, for even logic accepts the fact that to those close to the deceased an integral part of  their life is gone and it's a normal reaction to be upset and grave. Here a verse from the poetry of Khwaja Mir Dard comes to mind;

درد دل کے واسطے پیدا کیا انسان کو

ورنہ طاعت کے لیے کچھ کم نہ تھے کروبیاں

(Dard-e-dil kai wastai paida kia insaan ko

Warna ta'at kai liyay kuch kum na thay kar-o-byan)

This roughly translates to; the reason why mankind was brought to this world is to share each other's heart aches, since there are enough angels for worshipping God.

This could be referring to the philosophy that our soul being a part of God's 'Nur' (Light) longs to go back to that source and thus the life of this world is a constant heartache for the soul. It could also be talking about the expulsion of man from the Garden of Eden mentioned extensively in a lot of literary works such as in Milton's "Paradise Lost" or in Iqbal's countless poems. But not going in to the philosophy in literal terms the verse talks of man's duty to be there for one another in time of sorrow, and I cannot think of  a greater sorrow than death. 

There's a law of science which states;  what goes up must come down. And so is the case with us, we have to go back one day (unless of course for you this world is IT) so before we go let's make most of it. Now making money could be one goal in life, but I have noticed, those who worked on their people skills more than their earning skills are revered by all left behind. We lost one such man recently, my cousin, my brother and honestly a true source of knowledge and inspiration. The man had very little flaws if any and left us too soon, his departure has left a hole in a lot of people's hearts' and we are grieving, and though his absence will always be felt I have faith that he is in a better world now. 

In the Loving Memory of;

Ali Asghar Khoja

24.12.1979 - 16.03.2011