THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN: a book

The Five People You meet in Heaven is another soul quenching book by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom. This book is almost fable like, telling a story about a man named Eddie, who dies at the age of 83 at his workplace. Eddie is born and raised near a seaside amusement park, Ruby piers and interestingly he spends his adulthood also in this same place working as a maintenance guy till he breaths his last.
The book begins its chapter with The End. Paradoxical. But the whole length of the book begins with the end of Eddie’s life. Eddie, the maintenance guy dies while trying to save a little girl from a mishap at the park. After his death, Eddie walks the unknown path into what the writer calls heaven. Heaven is not the grassy hillock abundant in peace and respite. It’s the same world we live in yet seen in a different context for we look at it with different set of eyes and a different set of consciousness.
One by one, Eddie meets five people who demystify his life before death. The first person Eddie meets is a stranger, whose stark grossness of physical look perturbs Eddie in the beginning but with the meeting the first person Eddie learns that the people he is supposed to meet in the afterlife need not necessarily be his family or friends. From each of the five people Eddie meets, he learns a section of his own life he had lived yet wasn’t aware of.
This book makes you accept death in a new fashion. We think of death as an ultimate phase out thing but after reading this we see death as a door to self- discovery and self- redemption. May be I could connect to this book at this hour when I am trying to combat death sitting in a place where all I see is illnesses and death.
But today, I look at death, not as a foe but an accomplice to that new unseen world of afterlife. Death can be the time machine that reveals our past, unlocking its mystery and giving a new path leading to a known future. This book breaks the cliché- a known past and the unknown future. Ironically, this book shows past is unknown and future can be known.
While I’ve been scared of life after death, this book has opened my mind to a new realization and like Eddie I took a mental journey of afterlife, trying to figure out who I might meet. While I could not give shape to the strangers I might meet, I am pretty much sure of the family and friends I might want to meet and settle the scores for once and for all.
A soul fulfilling tale which makes one ponder on death yet make you accept death in a new limelight. A must read for people who fear to tread the path we all must walk on one day when our business on Earth is done.

Being in a hospital

It is a strange world we live in. Ignorance is bliss. Indeed it is. We discuss death; think of it; talk about it and know it’s gonna come for sure but when it actually comes knocking on our door, ain’t we frightened out of our wits?

I was one person who always claimed death to be my close buddy. Adolescent years’ struggles had me clutching onto the rims of death, trying to pull it my way all the while.

But today is a different story. I don’t know if I am trying to say I can still look at my own death in the face. Haven’t thought in that line yet! But sitting in this hospital ward listening to painful moans; looking at ghastly pipes shoved in various openings of the patients and holding my friend’s feverish hand; I fell a change in my vision of death.

Death is to come to us, all of us. ONE DAY.
But so long as no illness knocks on our doorstep, we ain’t aware of it. Death is a ghostly shadow lurking in every brick of this hospital ward. Hospital- this very term is a big joke of an oxymoron. Hospital is the last place we would wish to be in YET it is the first place we think of in times of illness.
I would like to loath the people who got this grand idea of a hospital where people breathe their last. At the same time I want God to bless these same people for in this same place, people take their first breath of life.

If this is a place abundant in pains and illnesses; this is the place where there is cure. I hate my presence here in this hospital ward yet feel lucky that I’m here nursing my ailing friend back to health.
Call it life; call it death; it is here you’ll find
Call it cure; call it pains; it is here you’ll hear
Call it blessing; call it curse; it is here you’ll feel.

Another Rainy day!

The Heaven above has opened her chest and let down the much awaited monsoon drops. Yesterday was an extremely hot day topped with power shut down for eight hours. Totally baked in oven like hot house I couldn’t help cursing the kind of houses the people here build, I mean come to see for yourself; everywhere you go, you see this box like buildings with limited openings they call house.
Just the other day I had taken my mom out for a walk and I couldn’t help wondering why people here preferred a box life. Had I been some kind of Architect I would definitely have understood the principle behind such houses but being not one it failed my reasoning.

If I ever lived here, I told my mom, I would build a house with windows all around the house. Tall glass windows which I would leave open so that the whole air in the house would circulate and make the house cool in its sultry summer days.Well, picture this..tall window glass, raindrops pelting hard outside, You see the cool drops yet is saved from getting wet(achoo! saves you from the nasty cold that could follow after such wetting!)

But today of all I longed for those tall glass windows. The raindrops pelting with roaring thunder had me watching it meekly from the enclosed small frame of the window. Many a times I dared to go out and once I even ventured out of the gates and looked heavenward with raindrops pelting on my face. I loved the way the drops touched the pores of my skin. It’s simply beautiful the way the raindrops dances on your skin. But I had to scurry back inside when the ear piercing thunder clapped followed by blinding lightning.

Another grand idea sipped in my pores following the raindrops. I made myself a hot cup of coffee and here I am with my laptop,listening to Ishq sufiyana ; the raindrops occasionally lightly touching me. Coffee, rain and a song you live…what better way can you think of to live a beautiful rainy day!