My first introduction to death!

 I must have been around six or seven years old at that time. First, let me tell you about my place, for the sake of better understanding . My house was on the side of a busy road, so I had particularly grown up in a locked house. The good thing is that the main door was a grill door, so I could see outside. As you have already guessed, my favorite pastime was to sit on my small blue chair in front of the main door. I remember wondering where the vehicles disappear when they vanish from my line of sight. It was a small village at the confluence of three rivers. One day, while sitting on the blue chair at my usual place, I saw a group of people chanting something and carrying a sleeping person covered with marigold flowers and an orange drape, on their shoulders. I must have asked some elder about what was happening. He joked that they were taking him to the river to throw him in, as he was dead now. He went as far as saying that they would throw me in the river too when I died. And from there it began—nightmares. I started dreaming that I had been tied on an arthi, with flower garlands and ropes, and was floating on the river’s surface after being thrown into the water following my death. I couldn't move my head as everything was tied tightly, and I was suffocating there. I used to wake up crying that my neck was paining.

Later, my mummy had a near-death experience. I don't know what I was feeling at that time; I was too young to feel anything. Don't you feel it's surprising that you don't have any control over your memories? You never know which part of an insignificant, mundane day will become a forever memory, and a seemingly lovely or important moment that you want to cherish forever blends into the background of your life's chaos.

Coming back to the story, from then on my escape began. I was running away from death until it caught up with me. I heard about the deaths of my relatives and neighbors, and I thought my family would be unscathed by it. Actually no, I did not even think of family and death in the same line of thought. Quite foolish I was, don't you think? Perhaps God wanted me to come out of this delusion, and it happened. One tragedy after another, and I was keeping myself together by saying, "It's okay as long as it's not someone close to me," "It's okay as long as I can handle it, everything will come back to normal." And it happened. Everything has become normal, if you call the peace and ruins left after a storm normal. From dreaming about death to feeling it this close was a long way, wasn't it? Especially for someone who had just gotten ready to face the dream and found her life turned into a nightmare instead. Then I started understanding how people started to believe in omens; it's nothing but self-blaming, for I am self reclaimed practical person stopped reading the book I was reading. When we are scared we look for signs around us a sign that will say our loved ones are safe, a sign that say gods are with us. Sometimes a unexpected help from a stranger , getting a train that you have almost missed, a seemingly unkind day treating you nicely, that's all it takes for us to hope again, hope that will pull us up from the rock bottom. But you know being in pain is not always a bad thing, you can then feel others suffering, you suddenly develop a super power to cry in someone else's pain. You can watch all the sad movies on your watchlist without crying. Because you suddenly start relating to Faiz sahab's saying " Duniya me aur bhi gam hai mohabbat ke siva, rahte aur bhi hai duniya me vasl ki rahat ke siva".

                                      And for those people wondering what was the tragedy, the nightmare of mine become someone's reality, someone who is very close to me. I saw him sinking in the same river. I wish it was just another nightmare of mine.