Just yesterday, a friend of mine( Divyanshu AKA Bihari AKA Bubbanshu) asked me and some others a question...'If you knew that you had just one month to live....what would you do ?' Actually his question was 'If the world was going to end in a month, what would you do ?' which i misunderstood to be the first question..
But anyway..both questions are equally interesting and require much questioning and soul searching..so i thought hey...lemme not study for my end semester exams (which, by the way are to begin on Tuesday) and write bout this, so that (PLEEEESE) someone reads it and ..i dunno...doesn't study for his/her endsem exams too...so that his endsem preparation would get screwed due to a lot of soul searching and self inspection ( which, i would have done before posting this... so less closer to the endsem(and of course everyone knows that study time varies as an exponentially decreasing function of time left for the exams !!)) so i would fare better in my exams ( we have relative grading here in iit (for all of you (much)lesser mortals with (much)greater sex ratios !!))So basically...yeah...i'm an RG( one who exploits the RG (Relative grading) system)
Leaving aside these trivialities, let me get to the question... or rather questions... Firstly :"If you knew that you were going to die in a month what would you do ?"As soon as I think about dying that too within a time period as small as a month there's a mixture of feelings inside me just bursting to come out...There's sadness, a weird kind of something that feels like pride and a strange nostalgia...I feel sad knowing that a month from now.. Sumedh Shrinivas Ranade will be no more, i will be gone, kaput, finished...A month from now i will be just a box of ashes....(Waiting for this to sink in, with a sombre look on my face, my eyes scan the audience for people wiping tears from their eyes...) (Disappointed... i go on.. !)I feel proud (not so much now !) knowing that there will be people who will still remember me(more fondly perhaps(a la Michael Jackson !)) whenever they laugh , or cry...I also look back and smile sadly, the hint of a tear moistening my eyes...a lump in my throat ...every particle of my body happy... completely happy, for that one moment.....the sum of all the happiness that was in my life.....Then my thoughts jerk back to the present and i think ..'Well, now i have really embarrassed myself in front of my audience !!'(I can hear them... "Wuss ! Wuss!!")...What would i do..
I'd sit up all night talking to friends...not just talking but listening, hearing, crying, laughing and hugging..I'd stay up late till the early morning (!!(credit to Aselin debison)) just reliving all of the moments...the fun that we had...In the morning..I'd bid them farewell... one last time....telling each of them that i love them, that i enjoyed every moment that i spent with them....and it would be true... all of it... it was fun....I'd leave with some clothes and my guitar....Catch the first rickshaw i see and go home...climb up the stairs slowly...savouring every moment of it...then stand in front of my door and put my finger on the bell....not removing it till i saw one of my parents standing in front of me...I'd hug them and tell them that i loved them, not caring if there was anyone watching....I'd stay home for a week...doing nothing...just taking it all in..HOME...My parents,my sister, my room,everything....I'd tell my sister that she was important to me, (Read:that i loved her( but it was getting a bit repetitive!)) and that though i thoroughly enjoyed all our fights, i didn't really mean all that mean stuff i said to her.....I'd stay for a week...just talking to people on the phone and eating every meal possible with my family...talking and listening but mostly just looking and sighing...Then I'd take off ... go to Goa , all by myself...I'd sit in some shack on the beach, reading , singing, listening to music and just looking at the sea....I'd also probably write something similar to this particular post, but longer...something that i hope people will read...But it won't really matter....'cause it's really meant for me..I'd read it again and again...Laughing and Well..Laughing...
When i have just one or two days left, I'd call all of my extended family there and a have a grand dinner on the beach..with all the jokes and the laughter and the aagraha (forcing food onto others when you serve them...after all there's a limit to what your fridge can hold..)!Then I'd walk on the beach alone ...strumming my guitar..singing all the songs i know.... I'd feel all of those songs..even the romantic ones..for though i have not loved...i can feel the 'might have' nostalgia (which is a bit like excruciating pleasure)...then I'd lay my guitar down on the sand and walk on the beach ... wetting my feet a little every now and then (to get the sand off..!)and wait.....
Now imagine....If the whole world was ending and everyone knew it......Would the people i want to spend time with , want to spend time with me ?( scanning the crowd again for guilty faces...)
Do you mean as much to a person as he(or she) means to you ? Are you important to people ? If a 'very close friend' wrote this...would you feature in it ? Tough questions...huh...Think about it...
PS: There are people who will appreciate what i have written and there are others who will scream "Wuss !! Wuss!!"The first may be genuine or they may be faking it because in some life paradigms(their's) it is acceptable to be senti...
The second, i believe are just posing....then again...their reply to this would be"Bullshit !!!"To each his own...for me..i say F**k You..
PPS:All the senti i have written above is punctuated by jokes...i mean every bit of both...the jokes are the just part of my' "Wuss!Wuss!" 'facade that i wasn't able to throw off, but that's good cause otherwise this post would get really boring...
PPPS:I love you all !!
PPPPS: But i'll love you more if you post comments (Wink Wink...)
PPPPPS: Really......
PPPPPPS: I would have the same answer even if the whole world was ending...i thought that came out through the post...People may not agree to my plans but bloody hell...you can't decide every single thing after considering what everyone else thinks/will do
PPPPPPPS: I believe fully (or strongly hope atleast !)that my plans will materialize....after all i'm asking people for just a day...surely i'm that important to people and...fact is....the people who come are the people who i really want to be there...... It is my whole hearted belief that true love/caring is reciprocated equally
gud 1 bro....but i didn't understood the title???
ReplyDeleteheiddeger was a philosopher who stressed on the importance of death...
ReplyDeleteI liked the jokes.. and the senti part was tooooo senti.. :-|
ReplyDeletePS: This comment was written so that u love me more :P
!!this is utam i presume
ReplyDeletePriyanka here, dont ask me kaunsi ...
ReplyDelete(Goa wali.. BITS Goa!)
Hey Sumedh! Loved your post.The topic you've chosen to write about is something I've often wondered about myself and a lot of the things you've said you would do in that one month, are the very things that I would do myself if placed in a similar situation. So, I guess, that's why I identified with the things you wrote about even more. When we know we have a limited amount of time to be around, I thing nothing would mean more to us than spending time with those we love and those who love us.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of cancer patients die a very peaceful death despite all the pain, simply because they've been prepared for death for a long time and so death doesn't come to them as suddenly as it does to many others..........When I think about it,I sometimes hope that I will also have that chance to meet all the people I've been close to in life, before death calls for me. I'd like to be surrounded by the ones I love when on my deathbed and die smiling, happy and content rather than die in isolation.
And yes Sumedh, there are definitely loads of people in this world who think you are special; and in case I've never mentioned it before,I'm one of those people too. I'm glad you've been a part of my life. I hope and pray that whatever plans God may have in store for you may be fulfilled in your lifetime. Death is a certainty and something we can't avoid, try as hard as we may, but my wish for you is that as long as you live, you may live a happy life.
Now that's a really long comment, but couldn't help myself. Your post prompted me to write so much............hehehee.
-Ms. Lynette
Dude should hv atleast acknowledged the fellow who gave you the question for the blog
ReplyDelete:)
i would also like to know more of what you feel would happen if the whole world was to end in a month & not just u
Dear sumedh,
ReplyDeletethat was too lovely for words ,my sentiments xjactly and Ilove you,wen shall v go to Goa?
Woof ?
ReplyDelete