The 'Emotional' Death March

No - this has nothing to do with holocaust or any such historic event. Rather, this is something a lot more personal and something that I am sure each of us will experience at some point in time - typically coinciding with our mid-life crisis (give or take a few years).

While what I am about to share with you is very topical, but I am sure you can relate with your own equivalent memories. With that in mind, read on.

You probably have heard of Buddha's life story in one form or the other. The gist of the story is that he was a royal prince with all the riches in the world and shielded from the miseries of life. One day he steps out of his palace and sees people at varied stages in their life and comfort - the poor, the ill, and the dead. At this transformational moment, he leaves his worldly attachments in search for the meaning of life and eventually attains englightenment.

While everyone is not necessarily a Buddha, I feel that we end up going through at least the first part of the story in our own way - the only difference being the Buddha and the rest is that we don't follow through - much like an amateur golfer and Phil Mickelson!

Many of us start our lives in a fairly well shielded environment. We experience illness and death here and there, but most are distant enough that we are not too emotionally affected by those events. As we grow up, we build our own memories during school and college and eventually culminating at our work lives. However, it is during our mid-life (well mid to late thirties anyways) that we come face to face with transformational moments - and in most cases, they are not related to 'blood' relatives but rather 'emotional' relatives - ones that we grew up with emotionally.

A classic case of such an emotional relative is John Lennon for those who grew up in the sixties and seventies listening to the Beatles and the impact that his death had on them.

My transformational moment happened a few months back on hearing the news of the death of 'Sujatha' (aka Rangarajan) a well-known and well-respected author / script writer in India (especially Tamilnadu).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujatha_Rangarajan

Sujatha, an engineer by work and author by hobby was an amazing influence on those who grew up during the eighties and nineties in Madras (now Chennai) in India. He had an amazing knack of making science fun and in writing O.Henry-esque stories with ease. He was extremely versatile in writing and had an amazing range of interests which he willingly and eagerly shared with his readers.

He was one of the first 'emotional' relative that I lost and it was hard. I felt the inexplicable sinking, knot-in-the-stomach feeling when I read the news. It's when the reality of death struck me fairly strongly. I feel that these are the times when we come face to face with our own temporal existence and take a hard look at ourselves and what we have accomplished so far - probably the onset of mid-life crisis!

Recently, there was another such incident. While this 'emotional' relative - Malaysia Vasudevan, a popular singer in Tamil films in the eighties - was not as impactful as Sujatha, it did prompt me to write this article. It was not really due to my attachment with his songs but rather more due to one of the songs he sang and how it intersected with my life. You see, one of the more popular songs he sang (shown below), was shot in the auditorium of the school where I was studying during my junior high school days.

My class was adjacent to the auditorium so much so that the auditorium air-vent-window was on one of the walls. As any kid would, we crowded around the window and peeped into the auditorium and watched the set being constructed and shot being taken with curiosity and awe!

I am sure this is just the beginning and there are many more 'emotional' relatives who are going to go beyond the horizon over the next few decades. The question is whether I will go in search of the truth like Buddha or let the events numb me and go back to getting immersed in TV - what do you think?!

If you have a moment, share your first 'emotional' relative whose passing affected you personally via a comment. If you don't have one yet, stop reading this blog and go on collecting more 'emotional' relatives - you still have time!

Update: After I published the post, I have been corrected rightly that the singer for the song above is K J Yesudas and not Malaysia Vasudevan. Interestingly, I ended up viewing the song as a 'related song' after listening to one of Malaysia Vasudevan's songs shared by my friend Bala - I guess my mind generalized the singers by then and just kept the emotional content :)