Rusting heads

I have always believed that life is ironic. Every time I look around,
I find irony staring at me in the face. That is why I started this
blog. I believe it is easiest to laugh at life when you understand
that it must be laughed at. But sometimes it turns out that the irony
of life is so twisted that it makes you cry.

I have never met Captain Sameer Joel Roy Choudhury. I have been a friend of
his sister Shurobi's for a couple of years now and so had heard about
him in bits and pieces. I visited Shurobi last on Durga Pooja when
she and Nisha couldn't stop talking about Sameer's wedding in
December. I remember wondering what it was about weddings that made
girls so excited.
The next time I heard of Sameer, it was because of a cruel twist of
fate. The irony I keep mentioning.
On Friday, the third of November 2006, Captain Sameer Roy Choudhury, age 26, serving as a Company Commander in a field post of the Assam Rifles was shot fatally. I think it's ironic that he was a couple of weeks away from returning home from his field posting.
He was also a month away from marrying the girl he had loved for ten years.

He had called his mother the day before his shooting and asked her
about the meaning of life. He had called, out of the blue,
friends he hadn't spoken to in years. Consciously, they would never
have known that this would be their last conversation. Clearly, they
would never have hung up if they did.
It is said that the soul knows its time of passing and tries its best
to comfort and prepare those around it before the time comes. But
there is never enough comfort for parents who have lost their only
son, a sister who has lost her only brother or a woman who has lost
the love of her life.

As I stood there in Shurobi's kitchen that Sunday morning watching
people grieve for Sameer, I learnt the greatest lesson in humility
that life has taught me.
I learnt that our plans don't matter. Life doesn't ever turn out the
way we think it should or will. It would be presumptuous for us to
plan. In the big scheme of things, perhaps it doesn't matter if things
go our way. We must simply live every day like it could be our last,
and so live it to be the best expression of who we are. Of what we
believe we are meant to be.

So how do the Roys get back to their lives? How does one get back to
their life once a void as great as this is created? Do they let this
pass and believe Sameer's time with them was over? Or do they look for
greater meaning in Sameer's life and passing? Should it be perceived
as a random act of the cruel universe or a purposeful occurrence that
is part of life? There again is the irony of living. That life, to be
complete, needs death. At its beginning and at its end.

I have always believed life and now even death have greater meaning
than we can comprehend. The purpose of every experience is meaning.
The purpose of death is life. For even those who die live on in the
actions of others. Captain Choudhury will live on through the actions
of those who seek to live their best lives in the honour of his
memory. That is what gives death its meaning. Those who live must live
out the best inspirations of those who don't. In that we honour not
only the lives we live, but also the deaths we choose.

Labels: The brave never fall

posted by Vishal @ 9:50 PM