Wabi Sabi

Making Friends With Reality; Facing Death

The one true reality of life is death. One inevitable fact that cannot be willed away, or denied. The only little detail is the timing; when exactly death will happen remains a mystery. Of course, the Hand of God plays the ultimate role in this factor. He decides. How often do we hear of someone escaping death by the skin of his teeth, in a bizarre accident and living to tell the tale. Or someone really young, healthy and fit, brimming with life, getting a massive heart attack and dying... just like that. These things happen and they make you realise that death is not the prerogative of the old or the ailing. Anything can happen at anytime to anyone and we ought to be mentally prepared.
Yet, does that happen? No. Most of us skirt the issue. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to think of our own death. We fear death, we hate to think that one day, we will be gone. Forget pondering upon it, preparing yourself mentally and spiritually for it, we don’t even address the issue, not even remotely. Instead we plan life like it will be forever. I thank my dear mother, now in Allah’s realm, who taught us early on that we are not immortal beings, that we must think of our own death once a day. It was her way of instilling in us the fear of Qayamat, the Day of Judgment, so that we will live life in adherence to our deen, religious code, in good conduct and with honesty. Well, Ma’s teaching paid off. I am comfortable with the idea of death. Infact I am currently in the process of de-cluttering my life and surroundings, so I don’t leave a mess for others to clear off after me! Like my friend Anita Juwarkar Antao says, laughingly, but matter-of-factly, “I can’t imagine any of my three sons actually going through my things sentimentally after I am gone, so I might as well throw off my stuff myself!”
A person who comes to mind in this context is journalist and author, Khushwant Singh, the fearless intellectual, who was just as dismissive of life (albeit enjoying it thoroughly and living it to the hilt), as he was of death, writing his own epitaph, years before he actually died, at a ripe old age of 99 (in 2014). I adored this man, and the only time I tasted scotch was at his home in Delhi, where, every evening, ritualistically, at 7, he would open his bar and have two drinks, dinner at 8 and sleep by 9 or so. His column, With Malice Towards One and All, which we published in Afternoon, was irreverent and it was only logical that his self-written epitaph read, “Here lies one who spared neither man nor God; Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod; Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun; Thank the Lord, he is dead, this son of a gun.”
He wrote thousands of columns and hundreds of books, of which the last released was Khushwantnama, (2013), which I still have to lay my hands on. But I remember reading what he said at the time, “On Independence Day, 2012, I turned 98, being aware of my state of health, I knew I would not write another book… The truth is that I have done everything I wanted to. I now want to die. I have lived long enough.” Now, how many people totally in their senses, not ailing, just getting old and frail, would say that! Well, Khushwant did, and may he continue to live through his writings, forever and ever.
The reason for writing this column on this subject, is however, something else. I perchance stumbled upon reading something rather thought-provoking, astounding, in fact. And my intant response was, “Wow! What a Wabi Sabi way of looking at life and death!” And then I went on to google the Grand Dame whose comments I had read. It was an extract from a Ted talk given by her.
Emily Levine, that’s who she is, begins her talk in an impish manner, in a conspiratorial tone saying, “I am going to first tell you something that in my grandmother would have elicited a five-oy alarm: oy-oy-oy-oy-oy! And here it is. Are you ready? Okay. I have Stage 4 lung cancer. Oh, I know, poor me. But I don’t feel that way. I am so okay with it.” She wanted no pity from no one!
Now, here is Emily, who looks at death not just as an inevitable fact but is all ready to embrace it and go on to the next level… She says she simply does not understand people who are out to “defeat death” and “overcome death.” “How do you do that,” she asks, “without killing off life? It doesn’t make sense to me!” she emphatically states. She also finds it an ungrateful way to be, it shows disrespect to nature. The idea that people think they can dominate nature, master it!
But here is what I thought was profound.
“I love being in sync with the cyclical rhythms of the universe. That’s what’s so extraordinary about life: It’s a cycle of generation, degeneration, regeneration. “I” is just a collection of particles that is arranged into this pattern, then will decompose and be available, all of its constituent parts to nature, to reorganise into another pattern. To me, that is so exciting, and it makes me feel even more grateful to be part of that process. I look at death now from this point of view.”
What do you think of that?! I was simply blown away. Quantum physics at its best…
She goes on, humorously, (after all she was a popular standup comic in the US of A who passed away in 2019), quoting from Auntie Mame, the 1958 comedy film;  “Auntie Mame said, ‘Life is a banquet!’ Well, I have eaten my fill. I have had an enormous appetite for life, I have consumed life, but in death, I am going to be consumed. I am going into the ground just the way I am, and there I invite every microbe and detritus-er and decomposer to have their fill – I think they’ll find me delicious.” Isn’t that outlook delightful and totally Wabi Sabi! Dust unto dust…
Emily concludes with how the German biologist, Andreas Weber, looked at life; as a part of the gift economy. “You are given this enormous gift, life. You enrich it as best as you can and then you give it back,” she smiles to much applause.
I couldn’t agree more. John Donne, would, too. Death Be Not Proud was all the rage in school. Death be not proud, though some have called thee, mighty and dreadful for Thou art not so…