Mortality grounds us

Living 2022

Director: Oliver Hermanus

You remember a time when you were looking at the world that passed on by. You see the stream of people all grown up, handsome, poised, brimming with confidence. You tell yourself that you want to be like them with lots of friends and be likeable. You just could not wait to grow up. In your inner circle, you have friends who think highly of you. You consider yourself the life and soul of a party.

And poof! You find yourself to be an old fool. You are a party pooper, a bore, a high-strung individual and a killjoy. People shun you. The younger ones would rather stay away from you to have a good time. They look at you as Scrooge and find excuses to stay away with a six-foot pole.

You wonder whatever happened to the bubbly youngster that you once were. Have you become that lone child in the playground with a perpetual sourpuss face who does not want to share his toys?

We sometimes lock ourselves in a comfort zone. We think we are all mighty and immortal and that there is no need to conform to the needs of others. Everything changes when death stares you in the face. Suddenly you realise the futility of it all - the pride, the Ego and the meaningless self-aggrandisement. You want to leave your legacy, nevertheless. You become one-minded, wishing to leave behind something for people to remember you by. The mind is willing, but the body is not. You become jealous of all the young people with such a positive outlook on life and with one thing they have, but you do not - time.

Mortality grounds us. It gives a purpose in life. It questions the meaning of all life and, in its way, tries to justify the reason for our existence.

In a purely artistic way, this message is conveyed in this film. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1953 masterpiece 'Ikiru'. 'Ikiru', in turn, was based on Leo Tolstoy's short story. Read here about Ikiru.

Set in 1953, in the office of the City Council of London, where stiff upper lip and haughty British class consciousness rules, the head of the Department, Mr Middleton, is diagnosed as having terminal cancer. He is a lonely man, having lost his wife earlier in life. He is not exactly close to his son and daughter-in-law. They see him as a necessary burden they must tolerate before they can lay their hands on his retirement money to improve their living conditions. Mr Middleton is not exactly pally with his subordinates, either. He believes in maintaining his distance from them as the hierarchical order dictates.

His chance to meet with one of his younger workers outside work as he digests his disease helps to re-ignite the ember he had lost. He made his life ambition to push for a children's playground that some members of the public have been tirelessly seeking.

Middleton dies, leaving everyone talking about his dedication. His workers vow to strive to improve the system. After the wake, as everyone returns to their daily routine, it is business as usual, back to its usual snail's pace. Nothing actually changed. All the resolutions to change are just small talks in the passing.

Without the fear of death, or if the thought of death is far away, people become complacent.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It ain't over till it is over!

Landscape with Figures" by George Tooker (1992)
Trapped in pigeon holes?

I have known Uncle K7 for more than thirty-over years. Ever ready with a gleaming smile, he enjoys having long banter with me every now and then, I think. Periodically, during draggy family functions, we would often be nooked at a corner to discuss his life and times as a young technician in the world of espionage. Working in the Malaysian Field Force as a sergeant, he was in the frontline trying to intercept communist's radio communication using the then avant-garde British and German technology. 

These family gatherings were nothing more than marking of attendance akin to a Mafia family meetings where the same crowd meets, again and again, to reinforce who is who in the family's hierarchal ladder. 

My interactions with Uncle K7 over the years opened up my understanding of mortality, immortality and the purpose of life. Through him, I realised the need to discover, re-discover and continue learning till the end of times. 

Thirty years ago, he was a happy man living in the memories of his working experience. He was retired from work but contented to see the country he fought for morphing into a developed one. He was delighted to see his four daughters blossom into young mothers with beautiful children. And the love of his life was by his side to attend to his whims and fancies.

A few years later, he was telling how he quit his chain-smoking habit. It was a time when he used to flame sixty stick a day. He blamed the British squarely for this unsavoury habit. It seems he picked up the nasty habit in the Force. A pack of imported cigarettes was part of his ration when he went into the jungle for his bandit-busting expeditions. What started as a harmless desire to try ended up as an addiction hard to expel. 

He enjoyed his last stick just before performing his penance at the Tirupathi temple in India. As it was customary to abstain from smoking in the vicinity of the holy site, he complied. Reaching for his habitual stick at the end of any task, he found it tasteless. And he grabbed another; also bland. Suddenly he had an intense abhorrence to the smell of cigarette. He threw away the pack, and henceforth he became an ex-smoker. I learned from him that 'all or none law' or 'cold turkey' are the ways to go. One has to put his mind to something and give his heart and soul to see it materialise. No half measures will do.

Yet another few years later, he was devastated by the sudden passing of the love of his life. The meetings after this era were filled with his accounts of melancholia, reminiscing the spring of his youthfulness. Soon after that, he was diagnosed to have quadruple coronary vessel disease. Against medical advice, he opted to go conservative, shunning any surgical intervention. Despite being labelled as a ticking time bomb, he was ready to embrace the offer of the walk to the Otherside. In his mind, his job on Earth was over; the sowing, the nurturing and the continuity was done. But time kept ticking with him, not away from him.

He later went on to immortalise his life experiences in a memoir, marking his contributions to the genesis of the newly independent nation called Malaya.

Now, twenty years after the diagnosis, he is still a happy man, embracing life as is offered to him. Still wearing his trademark grin, he replied with glee in his eyes when asked what he is up to. Since my last visit, he had discovered the magic of Youtube and the wealth of knowledge buried in cyberspace. He has delved into the art of face-reading (physiognomy) and numerology. On that evening, I was the guinea pig!

I am amazed that Uncle K7 always has something to do to keep himself busy. Many of his contemporaries are departed; hence, he has to explore and re-kindle himself to be occupied so that the light within him does not stop flickering.

At the time of retirement, I have seen many who just drop everything to plunge into what they think as well deserved break after years of breaking back for the family and for themselves. It may not be the best thing for the mind. It is as if one is just buying time before the Grimm Reaper's arrival. It should not be this way.

Being lazy or just resting?

Reminding ourselves of what Karl Marx said about capitalism's evils, he emphasised the importance of free time and shorter working hours for increasing productivity. Having time to oneself to indulge in activities they like give meaning to their existence. Since working hours are not going to get any shorter, but we tend to live longer, the only logical thing to do would be to use the time after retirement as a time for liberation. The silvered haired has the most opportune time to immerse himself in that something he wanted to do all his life but never had the time, resources or peace of mind to do as he was busy finding his footing in the material world.

"Free time is time for the full development of the individual - Karl Marx."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 

Who wants to live forever?

Afsos (Regret, Hindi/English; 2020)
Amazon Prime Video

The human race is the way it is because we are mortal beings. We know we have a shelf life and we want to finish all our humanly possible achievements within our lifetimes. Since our existence is finite, we yearn to immortalise it via discoveries and inventions. Our zest to explore the world we are born into pushes us to yonder to foreign shores and new frontiers. 

Without the fear of death, we would probably be fat blobs, uninitiated to pursue any endeavours. Everything would seem purposeless. Relationships are meaningless as there is nothing to expect anymore. We know what happens and how it will end. The diseases that we will get will give us the pain of illnesses but not relief from the distress. We will regress to our primal state; engaging in purposeless activities with impunity, knowing that nothing awaits us at the end. The seven deadly sins of Man will have a field day.

With the fear of death and hope of a comfortable after-life or re-births, we tend to empathise and care for the less fortunate. By creating stories about a possible after-life which seems forever or another lifeform which may be worse than the current one, we are cowed into submission of an unseen power. That sets law and order. Only death can save our lives on Earth.

A refreshing dark comedy about a loser who is even hopeless at suicide: he has had 11 failed attempts. He tries to lie down in front of a moving train; a vagabond distracts him. He tries to drown; fishermen save him. He tries placing himself amid busy midday Mumbai traffic; motorists avoid him skillfully. He finally hires a hired killer but even the assassin fumbles as she is given the wrong address.

The protagonist suddenly finds a purpose in life. His story that he had written and had been repeatedly rejected receives attention from a possible publisher. Life suddenly has meaning. The problem is that the killer that he hired has a one-track mind. No job should be left unfinished. She goes after him repeatedly in a twist of errors and comedy.

Duleep Singh 

Meanwhile, on the other side of India, in Uttarakhand, 11 monks are killed. The remaining 12th monk is the suspect and is at large. He is purportedly holding the elixir of immortality (Amrut). The investigating police officer goes over to summon assistance from the Mumbai Police. Also in search for the Amrut is a British scientist. Hot on the trail of all these is an investigative journalist who is looking into the activities of the agency that sends hired assassins. To complete the imbroglio is the protagonist's therapist who wants to stop him from killing himself.  

An impressive feat with a touch of philosophy and a peek into thanatology, the study of death and dying. An exciting addition to the story is the character of Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of Punjab and the Black Prince of Perthshire. He, at 180 years of age, is seen loitering around the railway station dying to have Death embrace him! He had apparently tricked the British by convincing them that the Kohinoor was indeed the Elixir of Immortality. The British realised the dupe when Queen Victoria died! Meanwhile, the elixir was nicely tucked unceremoniously in a vessel in a small temple in the cold, snowy mountains of Uttarakhand.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.