Saturday, 8 October 2016

Haare Ko Hari Naam

Youth gives us hope and effervescence; and often a false sense that all obstacles are surmountable. We generally grow out of this, but most of us do carry something from this phase, something very precious that we cant imagine losing, may be deep hidden in our hearts.
When very young, I was told that it's degeneration of cells that leads to old age and death; in old age the cells generated can't keep pace with decaying cells. What a wonderful, hope-giving knowledge! And how difficult it would be for ever improving science to slow down that process if not altogether reverse it! And then, it would be a mater of diet and lifestyle to keep one healthy and fit. Eternity! If not for me, definitely for my children and grand children.
What a great relief for someone like me who grew up with Larkin's brilliantly romantic, yet abysmally demotivating philosophy.

Aubade

Related Poem Content Details

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.   
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.   
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.   
Till then I see what’s really always there:   
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   
Making all thought impossible but how   
And where and when I shall myself die.   
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse   
—The good not done, the love not given, time   
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because   
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;   
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,   
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being 
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,   
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,   
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,   
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill   
That slows each impulse down to indecision.   
Most things may never happen: this one will,   
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without   
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave   
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.   
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,   
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,   
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring   
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.


And today ToI reports some new research saying that perhaps we have hit the ceiling on human longevity. That we are not likely to live beyond 115 under best of circumstances! That we all come with expiry date label!
What a shame! Does that mean we really have no choice but pouring ourselves into that  "vast moth eaten musical brocade"! My worst fears!

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