Eye-opening rehearsal of death

Remaining within our comfort zones, going through our own unique situations, and living a routine life, we human beings often tend to forget the ultimate truth of life. I was not an exception to this phenomenon. I was living as if I would never die. Mahatma Gandhi had once said: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow and learn as if you were to live forever.” Honestly, I had not really given a serious thought to this philosophy until the earthquake of September 18. The earthquake opened my eyes on the fleeting nature of our existence and how flawed our perception of life is: We live as if this life is never going to end.

I felt I understood geology that evening, the power of the divine and the unequal law of nature. I began thinking about so many other issues that I would otherwise hardly take time to contemplate on. And I think many others would have revisited their views about the ultimate truth of life.

They say experience is a great teacher. The mere 30-second-long quake taught me so many lessons. The first lesson that I learnt was how selfish we are. When the earthquake shook the ground, my affection for my second-half came to naught because I was thinking about none other than myself.

I ran out of my room when the quake struck. Nothing came to my mind other than my own safety. Before that terrifying experience, I used to say that I would be incomplete without my second half. But I failed to live up to this promise, the moment the life-threatening quake challenged me. I could not even utter a word to my better-half to come out of home. I ran all alone leaving her unattended. It was great of her that she followed me right after. I now feel shy to have acted so selfishly.

The other lesson I learnt is even more interesting.

My next-door neighbor had never bothered to talk to us in the last seven years. It was perhaps because we were tenants and did not own a house in town. But that evening he seemed to give in. I think the quake inculcated in him some strange realization of being ´nobody´ before nature´s cruel and indiscriminate fury.

The quake might have been nothing more than a terrifying experience for many, but to me it was an eye-opening rehearsal of death. So horrible, yet so enlightening!

Perhaps he felt a need to share his fear. His otherwise swollen ego, it seems, was crushed before the power of nature. Engulfed in his fear, I found him poorer and weaker than myself that evening. The quake might have been nothing more than a terrifying experience for many, but to me it was an eye-opening rehearsal of death.

So horrible, yet so enlightening!

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