Celebration of Life

"Our journey on Earth is like a burning matchstick. We know that the matchstick will burn itself out once it reaches its end. But sometimes, all it takes is small gust of wind to extinguish the flame of life...! " - Rohan Thakur, Way Back Home

It’s another normal day but with a pinch of special treatment. The very same day – when you were brought to home (as if from a market) or dropped (by the gods) wrapped in white piece of cloth – that’s what mums tell us when we are young. Family and friends wish you and make you feel ‘special’ and eventually the day starts belonging to you! It is ‘your’ day after all and the mood is set up for celebration. It is very happy feeling which we are trained to experience since childhood. Well, ‘my day’ (almost always) used to be the first or the second day of the new academic year and thus I was pampered by new class teachers on the very first day – quite a good feeling indeed! But now, twenty six years after that happy day, things are not quite same. I find myself draped in some weird thoughts.

Why we celebrate Birthdays?

Of course its the anniversary of the day when you were born… when you inhaled oxygen for the first time, when you got 'life'...

So, on birthdays we are celebrating LIFE!

But then, what is life? Its a journey. A journey towards a definite destination. It’s a journey that has begun and will end, for everything that has been created will be destroyed. It’s a journey in which you do not travel alone; you are born as a kid and your parents, within the cover of their love, care and protection, help you reach a stage where you can talk and interact with other kids. There the first ‘connection’ of this journey is made – the relationship with your parents! This connection helps building you more connections when you are sent to school. In school you meet up several like-minded kids daily. There you start building up 'frequencies' with most compatible of the lot - you call them ‘friends’. With the help of these buddies you move on in your journey with much more ease and security. Then, as we grow up, the importance of 'gurus' come into play. Though, a 'guru' is a very indefinite post as anyone can be a guru (a teacher) but let us stick to the technical term for now. With the help of a guru you learn the 'basics' of life. A code of conduct (education) is given by these gurus, which if you follow during the journey of life, might turn you into a civilized human being. Being civilized means you are a part of civilization and thus thousands of people who are moving along with you in this journey of life, directly or indirectly, are connected to you in some or the other way. When you realize that you are supposed to be concerned with the society (civilization) as well, you come out of the bubble you were living in and your connections or circles grow even more. Some connections are emotional and thus strong as they are natural bonds; and others are professional, meaningful, meant to solve a purpose and thus remain weak but equally important for the journey. And one day you realize that in this journey of life, which you were supposed to walk alone, you are actually being accompanied by thousands of people, everyone connected to you somehow.

Thus, in fact, on birthday you are celebrating your life and you are also celebrating the relationships that you have gained till date - you are celebrating your childhood, your adolescence, your youth, your family, your friendships, your companions, etc. And maybe that’s why we celebrate it every year so that we can update our own 'bahee-khaata' (balance sheet) of relationships that have been added in.

That makes sense.

But, unknowingly, during this journey we grow 'attachments'. Attachment with those very same connections that you have been building till date. Attachment with those whose presence we celebrate every year on our own birthday. Attachment is a nice thing, it reminds you that people love you and care about you. One feels good to know that someone else values him more than anyone else. But then it comes with a feeling of insecurity. Attachment comes with a feeling of fear - fear of losing the ones you are attached to. Till date you have never traversed through the journey of life alone. No one does. At every step you have taken help from someone. That has made you 'dependent'. And thus you ‘fear’. You are afraid because you don’t know how to travel alone. One would never learn that throughout his life.

But one travels alone in death. People accompany them till a point 'jiske aagey koi sath nahin jaata' - The ultimate destination. Everybody in this journey is traveling to reach that point. Some call it moksha, some call it nirvana, and some wish to see jannat and some heaven. Everyone comes to life and travels so as to reach the same destination.

One attains this destination when he is freed from the bondages; bondages of life.

Wait, bondages? Where they came in from?

Q. What are the bondages?

A. The attachments B. The relationships C. The connections or D. All of them

Well, that brings us to the conclusion that on birthdays we actually celebrate our BONDAGES.

Then, there are different forms of bondages also. After being travelling in this journey for twenty six years one realizes his/her responsibilities towards other fellow travelers. Imagine it as a caravan. You are tired and you want to have some water and sit and relax somewhere under a tree but you cannot as the caravan won’t stop for you. Thus, if you want to 'celebrate life' (birthday) in a particular way, you cannot, as you are bounded by responsibilities.

So, another conclusion is that on birthdays we also celebrate our responsibilities, whether we wish to or not, we have to.

All in all, we celebrate!

Maybe we celebrate due to our responsibilities, bondages or even out of fear. We are afraid of the 'uncertainties' of this caravan. You don’t know when you'll have to leave the caravan or when others will leave it. ‘Leave’ is the wrong word. Actually, we are afraid of when the journey will be over. But this fear also starts diminishing as you carry on with this journey (or live for more years). The experience of life tells you how to react when someone else's journey is over. But then it gets complicated when someone else completes his journey before you do. It becomes difficult for those who are left behind to continue the journey.

But, if we know that all are moving towards one single ultimate destination then why we don’t celebrate it when someone reaches his destination? Why we don’t celebrate death? “One can see the 'celebration of death' in Banaras”, one of my friend recently told me. Fascinating! Isn’t it? We do not celebrate death as we, who are left behind in the journey, always find the death of other person 'untimely'. We feel that someone who left the journey before might have not reached his destination. Thus we repent the loss, for some time, and then we move on with the caravan.

We have mastered this art of ‘moving on'. So much so that we have particular set of days to feel sorrow. We know that any moment of this journey could be the last one and thus we celebrate things which value or cater directly to the 'moving' caravan. For, we don’t have any idea about what is happening with those who have completed the journey.

Under the influence of this 'anticipation' of what is going to happen next, we created birthdays. We ourselves designed a model where we celebrate life and not the death; we celebrate the beginning and not the end. As we celebrate death of only those whom ‘we’ think have reached their destination based on the number of years they traveled. In this model of celebration we celebrate everything that is worldly, which has been attained in this life. Thus all the things attained (materialistic or emotional) during this journey is celebrated on birthdays. This model also defines that the 'living' person is incapable of identifying or visualizing anything beyond this journey of life. Whatever we achieve, whatever we can see, everything that is 'known' is thus celebrated. On the other hand, everything mysterious, indefinite, unsolved remains as an imagination. Thus we celebrate all practical things as we find ourselves incapable of listening to our intellect (imagination).

The brain thinks consciously and sub-consciously - the mixture of practical and emotional. A child doesn’t think practically. An old person is also emotional - those who are near to the world of 'unknown' are emotional. One becomes practical only when one is travelling through life so as to understand and adjust to the needs of the caravan. As soon as you leave the childhood, a sense of being practical and responsible comes into force which stays till the age drops. Thus we celebrate practicalities and formalities on birthdays.

So, finally, being in the age of practicality I should celebrate my formalities too.

Together, today I am celebrating

LIFE – All my Relationships – friendships – responsibilities – bondages – uncertainties -  fears – practicalities – formalities – and of course the Journey itself

Usually I do not celebrate all these on my birthdays. Usually it is a pretty much ‘happy’ child like affair which ends up treating my dear ones and spending some time and talking to those who are close to me. This time, instead, my mind is celebrating the uncertainty of this journey called life. Unfortunately, I got to witness the ‘end’ of the journey of few dear ones in the past year. The attachments, the memories, the times spent, all goes for a six in one moment. One ‘moves on’ ultimately with the caravan. But the effect of those ‘untimely’ exits on those who were travelling along is unbearable. The uncertainty is cruel. And thus I wanted to mark down and register my state of mind on this day of my journey.

Today indeed I celebrate the lives of all those who are with me throughout this journey much more than I celebrate my own life. Reminds me of these lines –

“Zindagi ko bahut pyaar humne diya…

Maut se bhi mohabbat nibhayenge hum…

Rote – rote zamaane mein aaye magar,

Haste haste zamaane se jayenge hum…

Jayenge par kidhar, hai kise ye khabar,

koi samjha nahin koi jana nahin…!”