If Man Is Not Born To Die...

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Anything that begins must end: This truth reassures man's story of life. The motivation to live intensely  comes only because there is the certainty of death. No death means no life. Plants animals and all mammals pass through the process of birth-copulation and death. If this process is altered life is unthinkable. The seasons change . Spring dies into summer and summer into rains. Vegetation dries up and dies in winter. The trees look bald, the hills and mountains get shrouded in snow. The sun- moon- stars and all that the eye sees lose lustre, the earth shivers and shrinks. But spring blows his mighty clarion and nature awakens into a maiden look. Flowers, greenery and life activities resume like the beaming tabla player changing into Drut. Nature is renewed into a new lease of youth. The humans, however, have no renewal. Once born, man grows, stabilizes in a full form like the Saal tree: Then follows the sear and yellow leaf, the sword falls off  the nerveless hands, the parched lips fail to kiss, the riotous nights of sexual fantasy recede from memory, the proud golden conches droop in defeat, the luxuriant hair falls off for the plait makers make- belief industry, the knees buckle, the breath gets puffy, the eyes see illusions, the romantic savour leaves from flutes to bleatings, pills, tonics fail to revive and one day at dawn or midnight he dies, that is he gives up everything  he prized and sleeps never to rise again. He is buried or burnt lest the festering body stink the living to vomit hate. The story ends . But another begins in the labour room. And the world moves in its diurnal rounds.

Imagine there is no death, only life, youth, energy endless!  Well Utopia wouldn't have come to the human mind. No poetry, arts or science, no politics, history or philosophy- nothing. Men and women would have rolled on mountain grass or leaning against craggy places looking at the blinding sun to disappear.  If there is no death there is nothing to celebrate life. Nothing to dream , nothing to plan for the morrow : For there is no tomorrow. Life is an eternal today.  No starry nights, no waxing waning moon; the sea would be still, wave less, the shores would be empty of men, no boats would venture into the sea to catch fish or to conquer distant shores, no dolphin  depths of love, no desire, no hunger - hence no life. Man would be without feeling, sensation, just a flesh bone form, a  moving statue incapable of love. No quest for anything. The wind's whisper, roar, soft winnowing caress will die on the insensitive body.

The mind- if any - will not think ,will not invent ways and means of escaping from anything for there wouldn't be anything to escape from or to. Time would be still . No past or future, no experience , no memory. Life would be an eternal present sans everything.

Death shapes our dreams to weave designs of pleasure and happiness. Death warrants human creativity. Man in order to satisfy his desires, cravings, wishes and hopes creates opportunities for himself. If he fails he goes mad and writes of his agony in woeful measures. He loves, writes poetry, paints, sculpts and invents. Man tries every moment to meet the challenge of death. This death consciousness makes a man/woman to love for love conquers death. The story of man is a constant struggle to conquer death. He creates new avenues of life. He also kills, hates, protests, fights to survive all hostilities which negate life. The Vedas, epics and philosophical treatises are all attempts of man to know his reality, to understand the human condition. He records his achievements which posterity often devalues. But record he must. This inner urge to express and record made him invent language and script. He wanted to unravel the mystery of creation, wanted to reach and walk on the moon and mars. He now proposes to reach the sun and other solar, lunar or unknown systems. All sciences, arts and life - prolonging exercises, medicines, surgery and all that man has achieved today have been possible because death stalks life and finally conquers. Life's journey and progress has been possible only because of death. Easeful death has been the prayer of all living beings. He seeks the balm of life and tries to overcome death. But the day death is conquered life will  cease to be on earth.

Today modern medical science has reduced human suffering. Human longevity has increased. The Vedic mantra of Saradam  Shatam - hundred Autumn- is now almost real, attainable. But man tries to go beyond  a century to double century. Google scientists are researching for that. Once the double is achieved man will think of  a millennium. But death will  come and should. If no death life will be  a loveless automaton lingering fruitlessly without purpose. Death gives meaning and purpose to life. Man should accept this truth. He may consider death as his Krishna - Marana he tu hi mama Shyam saman (Tagore)or his Nemesis. But death gives excitement to life. Man lives better, struggles for achievements, for glory in creativity simply because one day life will end. Death is not a conqueror of life; death is the chief inspiration, the real life breath which ultimately ceases. Victory be to death.