Wizards, Vampires and Demigods

The last decade of last century saw big breakthroughs in information technology. With everything happening online; it was a forgone conclusion that books are going to be outdated very soon. As it is, already fewer and fewer children were reading extra- curricular books. However, everything changed by the turn of the century. A boy wizard made children and some grown ups rushing to book stores. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone in 1997 was a big event in the history of books. With a mix of cutting edge new millennium art of publicity and a great talent of story telling Harry Potter became one of the biggest phenomena of all time.

The success of Harry Potter followed by some more successful series for young adults, recruiting more and more children and young adults to reading. There are two significant book series among those: The Twilight series and the Percy Jackson series. The first books of both the series released in the year 2005.

Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling no doubt is the trailblazer. It’s popular among kids and some grown ups like me. In fact, as a bookworm I am very proud to witness the midnight book release frenzy; anticipation and predictions before release of each book; and the rise of a popular culture.

After interacting with young people in internet (read Facebook!) I got the idea that the Twilight series is chiefly popular among young girls and very few boys. I may be wrong of course due to the small sample size! Twilight series has made Vampire one of the most popular icons of the 21^st century figuring in Movies, TV shows, fashion, music everywhere.

Frankly speaking, I had never heard about Percy Jackson books till its movie came out. Hence I have no idea the kind of frenzy it created during book releases. I checked in the net, the books from the series have won many awards and they figure in the bestseller list for young adults. This series has made Greek mythology fun and more accessible to young people.

The first Harry Potter book was written at a café by a homeless and single mom J. K. Rowling, who was surviving on state welfare support. Harry Potter is the boy wizard. His parents were killed by the dark lord Voldamort when he was just one year old, however, Voldamort could not kill child Harry. In fact, when he tried to kill him, Voldamort himself became powerless and his body just vanished. The series tells the story of good Harry versus evil Voldamort.

Twilight series is written by Stephenie Meyer. The series tells the love story of two people from entirely different world: Edward Cullen the immortal vampire and Bella Swan the mortal human.

Percy Jackson books started as a story woven by a Greek mythology teacher Rick Riordin to his son who had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. Percy is a Demigod, son of a Greek God and human mother. The series uses all the characters and motifs from Greek mythology to show the struggle between good Percy with the evil monsters and Titans.

Beneath the surface, all the three bestselling series have many common motifs and features.

For starter, the no brainer, they are all turned into blockbuster movies.

Meyer had never even written a short story before ‘Twilight’. Rowling didn’t have any published work before ‘Sorcerer’s stone’. When she was a kid she wrote some fantasy stories. Riordin had written ‘Tres Navarre’ series but it was for adults. Percy Jackson was his first try at children’s literature. Such huge success for first timers, gives rays of hope to wannabes like me all over the world.

All three books deal with supernatural and the characters are drawn from mythologies and folklores of pre-Christian Europe. Harry Potter series has wizards, witches, werewolves, hippogriff, giants and so on; Twilight saga has vampires and werewolves; Percy Jackson series has God, Demigods, Titans, animals, tree and other characters from Greek mythology.

The chief characters in these books are not normal human beings. Harry is a wizard. In Twilight, Edward Cullen is a vampire, Bella Swan is a human with special power of closing her mind and Jacob is a werewolf. Percy is a Demigod.

In real world, among human beings, the main characters are considered to be misfit or some sort of freak. Harry was raised as a poor freak relation by his aunt’s family. Percy was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia because his mind was made to read ancient Greek and fight in battlefield. Although classmates were in awe of Cullen family, because of their beauty, brain and money still they knew they were freak. Bella was an accident-prone girl with low self-esteem.

The magical community, the vampire community, the werewolf community, the Greek mythology people keep their identity a closely guarded secret. They go through lots of pain and effort to keep themselves and their activities secret from normal human beings. About Vampire and werewolf one can understand because people will lynch them but the paranoia of magical people and Greek mythology people is a bit difficult to understand. In fact, sometimes they give much more effort to hide their track than to fight the dark power!

The main heroes of all three books have golden hearts. They are never for misusing their power to hurt harmless people. They are very loyal, heroic, always taking risks sometimes even quite unnecessarily.

All the three series tell us the stories from single person perspective. Percy Jackson’s books are written in first person, Percy telling his own story. Twilight books are written in first-person too; primarily through Bella and partly through Jacob. There’s a book in the pipeline, told by Edward Cullen. The Harry Potter stories are not written in first person, however they are written so completely from the perspective of Harry that it might as well be Harry telling himself his story. In the whole series as far as I remember there were only two chapters where Harry was absent; First chapters of Sorcerer’s Stone and half Blood Prince.

Out of these three series, twilight series is different from the other two series. Twilight caters more towards young audience rather than young adults. In addition it deals with the dynamics of the relation between Vampire and human beings; whereas in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series normal human beings known as muggles and mortals respectively; play non-significant roles. In the broader frame of the story, in fact, human does not figure at all. The main theme of twilight is romance, in other two series romance is there but the main theme is struggle of main protagonist with the dark forces.

After reading the first Percy Jackson book, ‘The Lightning Thief’ I thought it’s a spoof of Harry Potter. But when I googled it I found it’s an independent and serious book which has won many awards. In fact although the book was published in 2005, Rick Riordan finished writing the manuscript in 1994 and first accepted by a publishing company in 1997. There were many changes after that till the day it was published.

Some of the changes have definite mark of Potter. May be it is just his way of paying respect to one of the most influential children’s book or just plain ‘borrowing’. I would like to think it is the former because in the chapter ‘I settle my tab’ he had written something which is an obvious reference to Harry Potter.

 “He (the guard) was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. I wasn’t much into fantasy but the book must’ve been good, because the guard took a while to look up”

Both Harry and Percy spend more than a decade of their life without knowing their true identity and power. Even while being unaware each of them did one major deed. Harry talked to a snake and then made it free. Percy killed his algebra teacher who was actually a fury.

Both Harry and Percy went to special school for their kind. Harry went to ‘Hogwart school of witchcraft and wizadry’ and Percy went to ‘Camp half-blood’.

Before joining there special schools they were already famous among their peers. Harry, for surviving Voldamort’s curse and in the way almost finishing him. Percy, for killing a minotaur and whispers of his being son of the powerful Poseidon who can stop the impending war of Gods.

While fighting with dark forces they had to struggle at their schools too. There were hostile teachers: Severus Snape and Mr. D and bully students: Draco Malfoy and Clarisse respectively.

Till he comes of age Harry had to go back to his tormentor aunt and her family, just so that his mother Lily’s charm will keep on working and hence Harry would remain protected. Likewise till his step dad, whom he completely despises, was around Percy had to go back to him every summer. Because he stinks a lot and the stink brushes on Percy for the whole year, thus keeping off the monsters from smelling Percy. Okay I accept, this part might be sounding more like a spoof!

The weapon/instrument of a wizard is a wand whereas that of a demigod is a sword. In both the series it’s mentioned that instruments choose the master. With not so suitable instrument the master can do his/her stuffs but the affect won’t be the same. They can optimize their power only if they use the instrument destined for them. When they hold the instrument they can feel ‘I belong to this’. In Sorcerer’s Stone book, chapter ‘Diagon Ally’ it’s written –

Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers.

In Lightning Thief chapter ‘I ruin a perfectly good bus’ it’s written –

I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

The main characters always get nightmares about the things happening or about to happen. This mainly happen because although they are good they have a connection with evil forces too. The nightmares happen because the evil is trying to control their mind and thoughts.

Harry and Percy both had choice to join the dark forces and be very powerful. Still they chose to be with good where there is no guarantee of reward plus a risk to lose their life.

Both Harry and Percy are victims of malicious campaign by media. They were hence misunderstood and sometimes brooding heroes.

Some lines in both the books are almost identical. To give an instance here in ‘the Sorcerer’s Stone’ chapter ‘The Potion Master’

He (Prof Snape) paused at Harry’s name. ‘Ah yes’, he said softly, ‘Harry Potter our new – celebrity’

In the book ‘the Lightening Thief’, chapter ‘I am offered a quest’

‘Well well’, Mr. D said without looking up ‘our little celebrity’

Hence, almost the same reaction by seemingly hostile teachers, when they met our heroes formally for the first time.

There are three spearheads in both the books. The leader and executor are Harry and Percy; the brain is always a girl - Hermione and Annabeth respectively; lastly a very loyal friend who does not seem to be good for anything but rises to occasions – Ron and Grover respectively.

Although the wizard and Greek authorities take lots of precaution not to get exposed still sometimes some supernatural stuffs happen in broad day light, in front of a crowd, which are not possible to cover up. However, even if the authorities fail they bank on the non-believing nature of human beings for cover not being blown away. The special kinds in both the series are of the opinion, human beings don’t want to believe in supernatural stuffs so they will go to any extend to explain any thing out of ordinary with their believable parameters.

The main places of both Greek gods and wizard world are at some important human street, city and landmark. For example the main market of wizards, Diagon Ally can be reached though a pub for wizards, Leaky Cauldron. And this pub is on a busy London Street. The underworld of Percy Jackson is a recording studio in Los Angeles. To catch the train to Hogwarts young witches and wizards have to go to platform no. nine and three quarters in London’s King’s Cross station. This ‘fractional’ platform can be reached by walking straight at the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Mountain Olympus of Greek mythology, is at the 600^th floor of Empire State Building, New York. A special key inserted in the security slot of the elevator can take one there.

Three headed dog guarding the gates of Hades, Cerberus is present in both the series. In Percy Jackson series in it’s original form. In Harry Potter series as the three headed dog Fluffy as the guard of Sorcerer’s stone.

I love reading and re-reading the books. However, every time few questions popped in my head, which have remained unresolved till now.

Even if there is a system to hide the activities of wizards and Gods, I can’t understand how they manage to hide all these magical creatures and plants. Some of them are smart but some of them are not and some of them like the plants don’t have brain at all. Would not it be impossible to hide away so many creatures? In fact, in the books there are mentions of covering up incidents and objects but never any mention of covering up of plants and creatures.

In both the books, some tasks considered huge even by experienced adults, are accomplished with childlike simplicity by, well children!

How can all these adult characters in the books sit back comfortably expecting a young teenager to save the world. Be it Harry and Hermione finding Horcruxes or Percy finding the lightening. Even the greatest demigod Hercules was fully grown young man before going for his tasks. I guess that’s why these are called fantasy of children!

Children who were unaware about their identity and then suddenly they get to know that they are wizard or demigod. How will all of a sudden they will get to know their new world’s systems, technology, culture etc.? Should not be there some orientation programme or leaflet for these newbies? So you have just found out you are a wizard/demigod; not to worry our leaflet will help you….

Harry and Percy were all wide eyed walking in the darkness because they had absolutely no idea what is happening and what would happen next. They made some mistakes too because they were not aware of the ways of their new world. At least Percy is better off because Chiron joined in his school as his Greek mythology teacher and taught him the stories (or in this case histories) of Greek mythology thoroughly. Still Percy was unaware of the ways of his new world. Dumbledore thought of Hagrid to tell Harry about his new school and new life. Hagrid may be very loyal but he is a mumbling blunderer who even did not tell Harry how to reach platform 9 and 3/4. By fluke he met the Wisleay family or he would have been roaming in King’s cross station till now. May be reaching in the completely strange land enhances the fairy tale quality of these stories.

Besides these questions, in general we love these books for their beautiful story telling style, wit, humour and above all the help in renewal of interest in books. Harry Potter series is over for good or till Rowling changes her mind! Percy Jackson’s major adventures are over but Riordin has started a sequel to this series based on Roman mythology. Whatever may be the case, the phenomenon created by these books along with Twilight saga is not going away soon.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

Didn't Shakespeare quote something like this, in one of his plays! Well, he definitely did not hear about tale of my name. Once upon a time, my parents thought long and hard for an unusual name and zeroed down on 'Jeeta'. Well unusual part was well and good. Each year in my class, there used to be 2/3 Anita, half a dozen Susmita, Aparajita and so on but never another Jeeta. My initial years were spent in a small town so everyone knew me may be since before my birth, so not much problem vis a vis name there. After I left my hometown, boy was I stunned by name problems!

New city and new University so bombarded with new people everywhere. In university, the following would be my typical conversation with a new friend.

Prototype new friend (PNF): Hi I am susmita/anita/............ and u r?

Me: hi, I m Jeeta

PNF: oh hi Geeta

Me: no Jeeta

PNF: yeah Geeta

Me: it's Jeeta J-E-E-T-A

In University, like all offices, there were lots of important looking people filling up lots of important looking forms for you. My typical conversation with an important looking form filler would be like following.

Prototype Important Looking Form Filler (PILFF): Name?

Me: Jeeta

PILFF: ok Geeta

Me: no Jeeta

PILFF: achhhha Ajita

Me: no it’s J-E-E-T-A

PILFF: (would nod his/her head vigourosly and would write down Geeta/Ajita)

Me: no no that’s not my name

PILFF: if it’s Jeeta then shouldn’t it start with G?

Me: let me write it down

PILFF: hey you tell me I will write

Me: it’s J-E-E…….

PILFF: oh I know there was a girl by the same name from Kerala

Then PILFF would write down Jeetha and I would forcefully take the pen from him/her and will write down my name.

Like this my life went on in University and after few semesters most the people mattered to me knew my name. After a while, I joined in an office. It was a small office so by end of first month I crossed the name exchanging phase and that to with success! But the problem came while attending phones and interacting with people from outside.

My interaction with outsiders mostly went like that with PNF. My phone conversations were, however, another story altogether. I was in this cubicle kind of place surrounded by a crowd who could hear each and every word I speak. My typical conversation on office phone with any Tom, Dick, Harry or Jane (TDHJ) at the other end would be like following.

TDHJ: hello

Me: hello

TDHJ: may I know who is on the line

Me: Jeeta

TDHJ: oh Geeta

Me; no Jeeta

TDHJ: oh Geeta

Then it will go on like infinity times with me screaming my name with a crowd near by.

After few this kind of mishaps, I became smarter (or that’s what I thought). My revised typical office phone conversation became like this:

TDHJ: hello

Me: hello

TDHJ: may I know who is on the line

Me: whom do u want to talk to?

TDHJ: may I know who is on the line

Me: it doesn’t matter you tell me whom do you want to speak to?

After this they would get paranoid; may be our office has employed a mysterious nameless and faceless person to keep tab on calls so they would even become more persistent to know my name. After that two things used to happen first is again the same routine as above or I would give the phone any willing victim present near me.

Then lots of change came and the biggest change being motherhood. Since last 4 years it’s like this, me with my daughter running the errands physically or over phone. I, now, interact with a variety of people who want to know my name; restaurant manager for home delivery, pest control people, tailors, medicine shops doing home delivery, vegetable vendors again doing home delivery, microwave servicing people, water filter servicing people and so on.

Now as a mother of a hyperactive (a decent name used now a day in place of devilish) kid, I lack any kind of leisure time to be a decent or patient person. Now my conversation with any random person goes like following.

Random Person (RP): Your name, madam?

Me: Jeeta

RP: Geetal/hetal/meenal……? (since now I am in Gujarat, where every girl name ends at –al)

Me: oh sure that’s my name

RP: how do u spell it?

Me: just the way it is sounding

RP: ok

So now the name problem is sort of solved but I have to keep track of my names. I mean if I am Geetal to my hair stylist, Meenal to filter service or may be Hetal to pest control company so I have to remember who knows me by what name. Quite a huge and definitely undesirable memory exercise.

I have come out a solution for this problem too. Now my typical conversation with my regular service providers goes like this.

Prototype Regular Service Provider (PRSP): Your name, madam?

Me: Geetal

PRSP: (after searching in their database for sometime) sorry ma’am this name is not in our record

Me: oh I mistakenly thought I had taken the contract under my sister’s name, now please check under my name, it’s Hetal

PRSP: (again after searching in their database for sometime) sorry ma’am this name is also not in our record

Me: aaaahhhh I remember now we had taken the contract under my sister-in-law’s name which is Meenal!

Me and My Claustrophobia

Like all parts of India, my home state Odisha, is also the embodiment of diversity. Anyone having any idea about Odisha will know the three parts of this state (eastern/costal, western and southern parts) are different in many ways from each other, although there are underlying commonalities among these three.

Both my parents are from coastal area and they got settled in western Odisha. Born and brought up in Sambalpur, we sisters considered ourselves pure Sambalpuri but we used always miss a thing, which is having surrounded by relatives, especially the elder ones. The chief reason of this being our elder relatives were walking and talking treasure of stories, although according to them those were not “stories” but stuffs which really happened to them. Surprisingly they used to encounter Godesses both angry and benevolent kinds, Gurus aged seven hundred years, different kinds of ghosts, freedom fighters and what not. We got to hear all these stories only during vacations. The rest of the time we used to discuss and imagine all those stories happening.

After few years my father’s cousin brother shifted to Sambalpur. His wife whom we call ‘Bada Maa’ literally translated in English would be ‘elder mother’, used to visit us frequently. She is extremely patient with kids, very affectionate and loving. She was motherly and very solid looking woman; who loves you so can take care of all your problems. We loved her and still love her a lot. We used to force her to stay back at our place overnight always, not only because we adored her but chiefly because she was a treasure of stories. Apparently amazing things happened to her too.

One night she told us about this traveling theatre show in her village. In 1950’s in a village without electricity and even a radio this was a bigger than a big event. It was a winter night the audiences brought their mats to sit on and blankets to cover. The drama went on almost for whole night. The story was about a king and his 2 wives; one nice and one wicked. The wicked wife with her wicked son made life of nice wife and her son miserable. Finally the king got to know about their wickedness and punished them. I don’t remember what punishment the wicked queen got but I will never forget her wicked son’s punishment. He was imprisoned in an airtight iron trunk.

The whole thing I wrote in a paragraph but Bada Maa told the story in a lot more colourful language with lots of twists and turns  taking a couple of hours. At the end of the story we were very happy for the good queen and her good son however we were very curious about how the theatre people showed locking up the wicked son in the air tight trunk. So we discussed among ourselves the possibilities including not showing the act just taking him to backstage or a fake iron trunk made of cloth and so on.

After a while we went to Bada Maa to ask her what really had happened. She made a very serious face and said ‘it was an airtight iron trunk, as I told you’

‘But how did they show it’

‘Like an airtight trunk’

‘How can they lock someone in that kind of trunk? How will some one breath there?’

My Bada Maa in a very matter of fact voice replied ‘oh, this boy could not breathe and the next day they threw away his dead body’

Then few moments of silence followed by confused questions shot towards Bada Maa and in reply we got lots of gory details which I am not going into now.

That night one more phobia was added to my list of phobias, ‘claustrophobia’. I kept on imagining about the boy and was shaking. Gradually in my mind I, myself took the place of the boy. Many a nights I woke up sweaty after nightmares involving me locked up in airtight iron trunk. And with time in place of iron trunk there were other stuffs like a room, cloth bag or anything which can be closed tightly with me inside.

I got scared being in a closed room, in case someone lock me from outside. It was difficult for me to read or watch something involving people trapped in any place or people taking pleasure trip in tube or people having actions in submarine. FYI, I never could read Jules Verne’s ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ and Journey to the Center of the Earth’ and had a very tough time watching Mel Gibson’s ‘Forever Young’.

Once I remember I saw a still of a movie in a magazine. The name of the movie I don’t remember. In this still, Mithun Chakraborty was catching some heroine in a fishnet a la angler. Remember it was 1980’s so the scene was supposed to be very tastefully sensual! I can’t tell you how glad I am the decade of side ponytails and oversized earrings are a thing of past now. Anyway, I got very scared just looking at the picture. What if I am tied inside a strong net which I can’t tear up and people just forget about me and leave me like that. Like this, my claustrophobia just increased by day and overpowering me completely.

Then when I went to hostel it became very difficult for me. If you sleep till late and your roommate has an early class then there is every chance that she will lock you up by mistake. And this happened to me too. Unfortunately for first year in my hostel our balcony was jammed. I went crazy being latched in the room; yeah lucky for me she just latched it. It happened twice and on both the occasions I screamed and screamed till the whole hostel gathered near my room. They gave me very odd looks because girl getting latched in was fairly common in our hostel and other girl just bang their doors don’t bring down the roof by screaming.

You know how difficult it is to fit in a new place I did not want them to think I am a cry baby. I wanted to rationalize my fear. With a more mature mind I thought about all the stories narrated to us by our Bada Maa and other elder relatives. And it dawned on me they were stretching the facts a lot to give us interesting stories. In fact in some stories there were only stretching no facts. If someone was alive till his 700^th year, it would have been in record books; if you meet Godesses so easily you can’t have so many problems in your life and like this I rationalised each and every story. Then coming to Bada Maa’s story I explained myself they just can’t kill a boy for performance, even if they would they would get arrested or at least would get lynched by the mob.

I worked hard on it and although my claustrophobia did not go away entirely but it went to background and did not bother me so much.

After going to hostel I could not meet Bada Maa for a long time then after few years I met her. By that time I was so proud of myself for exorcising my demon almost completely. Bada Maa was looking solid and loving as ever only now toothless. As a funny story I recounted her how she told us the boy really died and we believed her. And started laughing.

My laugh stopped halfway when in her most serious tone she told me ‘I didn’t lie. The boy really died in the trunk and they threw his body next day.’  

The Desperate Housewife in Me

One of the momentous phenomena of this century’s popular media has to be the TV show ‘Desperate Housewives’, a dark comedy about the housewives living on the imaginary wisteria lane. In 2004-05, the year the show premiered on ABC, immediately it captured public imagination. It even got mentioned by the then American First Lady Laura Bush at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner of 2005. In her own words “I am married to the president of the United States, and here's our typical evening: Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I'm watching Desperate Housewives— with Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife.”   

Before this show, there was hardly any mention of not so young housewives in the popular media. In arty and high brow kind of media these housewives existed but were generally depicted as ‘chronically depressed and mostly committing suicide in the end’ type. After the show, suddenly housewives in their 30’s and 40’s; managing tantrum throwing husband and kids, washing, cleaning and haggling; became sexy. We housewives, always have to deal with people from all walks of life: kids, husband, parents, in-laws, friends, snooty neighbours, kids’ friends, domestic helps, handy men, grocers and such, the list is endless. No one gives us any credit for our management or public relation skills.  We have been doing this since centuries without an MBA degree.

This show gave people like me voices and characters with whom I can empathise. Be it ex-career women Lynette Scavo now shut from the world with her brats, Martha Stewart-ish Bree Van de Kamp slaving away without a hint of appreciation from family, heart broken Susan Mayer looking for true love before it is too late or the sexy Gabrielle Solis craving for husband’s time but instead getting expensive gifts.

After the first season the initial craze got subdued but the show has made it’s mark in people’s mind from Canada to China. There are murmurs the supposedly cool and affectionate housewives who apparently don’t do any real work might be desperate.

Now the political correct term is homemaker but whom are we kidding the attitude of people towards us is still ‘housewifey’. This show depicts housewives neither as the sacrificing goddess nor the brainless bitch but in a realist grey shade. I, as a housewife, find the show very inspiring. The characters have this spunk and a never say die attitude. Let’s accept the fact men are just overgrown babies so if we lose it then who will save the family. So these housewives have been confronting (sometimes even physically!) the world continuously for survival of their family.

I have learnt so much from the show. Especially the housewives’ talent of getting things done by ‘hook or crook’, sometimes even bordering on soft blackmailing, has been a great education for me. Just the other day I went to buy just one small thing to our local grocer and had to wait for a long time because for some reason he went on giving stuffs to people who came after me with long lists. Even after telling him many times he did not budge. I waited and waited, in case you are wondering why then I needed the stuff urgently and this grocer gives the largest discount.

After sometime my daughter got restless and started playing with the varieties of rice he had kept outside. She started mixing those together, which the grocer obviously did not like and requested me to ‘control’ my kid. I started screaming at my daughter as I always do! But suddenly I had one ‘Desperate Housewife’ idea flash, I told him my daughter is like this only and never listens to me. So unless gave me my thing fast she could go on mixing his different kinds of rices. And guess what, I got my thing in a jiffy. So happy ending for this desperate housewife!

Death: The Dissection

I read somewhere, in the whole recorded history there were only 11 days when people were not fighting any war in any part of our planet. So, thousands years of history and 11 days of peace. Still an achievement! If history is studied carefully or not so carefully; it is apparent most of the conflicts have arisen due to religions. Wise people say fighting over religion is very idiotic since the underlying teachings of all religions are the same like peace, love etc. etc. I won’t know about that. I have not really read any religious text, not even my own religion Hinduism’s texts. Actually, especially Hinduism’s texts because like everything else in this religion, there are indeterminate number of texts too.

From whatever I have heard, I can say, there is another common feature in all religions. Gods in all religions rule in heaven and they don’t die. Whereas, we creatures of earth, we have to die. I don’t know any aliens personally so can’t comment on their death. Our life is very tiresome it always kills us earthlings in the end.

What is this death? Doctors tell us all organs of our body stop working at death and after that our body starts decaying. Doctors have a way of saying obvious things using fancy words. Religious leaders and priests tell us our soul leaves our body in fact some researchers have found the weight of the soul to be around 800 grams. It’s not that difficult to calculate you just subtract post-death weight from pre-death weight of a person, then repeat the exercise for a sample and then take the average. The difficult part here must have been duping the funding agency in thinking that this is a real and useful research! Philosophers discusses and argues then argues and discusses about death. The Marxists of course think we all with our bourgeois life are already dead.

Death has been dealt again and again in fiction, movie and other media. The subject about death widely dealt in media is adjustment problems of friends and families after demise of a person. But very few have gone to the territory of questioning death. Among the recent literatures the Harry Potter series dealt with it a little. According to the great wizard Dumbledore death is a well deserved rest after a fulfilling life.

But, for normal person on the road, what does death mean? May be death is a kind of final good bye. In various phases of one’s life we are close friend with different people. Then sometimes they leave sometime we have to leave. While leaving there is always exchanging of phone number and addresses with great promises of keeping in touch always. For sometime it’s like that then changes of time and place take toll on relationship and people outgrow each other. After few months or years there will be no communication at all and gradually the person will fade in memory as well. Then we reach a point where there is no connection to old friend and there is no scope of ever having one.

Death is somewhat like this with few differences. Sometimes you never get to say good bye. Definitely no exchanges of phone number and address. The loss of connection is sudden and final. And there’s absolutely no resurfacing. These days, old and long forgotten friends are sometimes resurfacing, thanks to modern day phenomenon known as social networking in the internet.

If only we had known where we are going after death then we could exchange addresses. May be this exchange is the very reason, why we don’t know our whereabouts after death. Because death gives us complete break after a hard life. In case, rebirth theory is correct then death gives us the total chance to “move on” to start from the “scratch”. Nature provides us a clean slate which can obviously be not possible with lots of baggage from past.

Suppose there is no God, no afterlife, no judgment, no incarnation then why does death come? The logical explanation would be, without death, only birth will explode the population, creating imbalance in our planet. This finally may lead to destruction of our planet. May be death helps in evolution as well. Birth of new improved beings from the ashes of death of old.

After industrial revolution, there’s no looking back for science. Now it’s at pinnacle, everyday is a new discovery. Great age and time for humanity. But too much truth sometimes can kill the mystery, fantasy, imagination and romance. Hundred years ago, moon was so romantic. The love poems are crowded with comparison between lovers’ anatomies to moon. Now one would think twice before comparing his girl friend’s face to a dry area full of holes. In fact, a face like moon is sounding like a face full of acnes!

 
There are only very few mysteries left keeping the romance alive. Death is one of those magic, romance and unsolved mysteries. Death is still the not uncovered shroud.