Dignity and deliverance in death: Going gentle into that good night
Talk of death or assisted dying is taboo in India. But it is time to have this conversation.
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An obiter dictum of history tells us that when an epidemic of the sweating sickness swept through England, King Henry VIII fled London and, panic-stricken, raced from one nobleman’s home to another seeking safety. The panic was justified because the deadly sickness could kill a human within hours of the first symptom appearing.
Life was dangerous then: infections, diseases, famines, epidemics, wars – one never knew where the blow would come from. Even the act of giving birth and being born was dangerous. It is said that more women died in childbirth than men in wars. Infant mortality, too, was huge. The odds were stacked against humans, against their long survival; life was a constant struggle to survive.
The blessing given to the young in India even today is “Aayushman bhava”: live long. Now, we do live long. Nevertheless, the fear of death has not left us. In recent times, the Covid-19 pandemic brought that fear out into the open. We knew then what it was to be helpless, too terrified of an infinitely tiny virus, afraid of dying. The number of euphemisms we have for “death” and “dying” are an indication of our feelings towards the very words.
What then of the actual fact? We...
