Perspectives

“8,778 deaths; 209,839 confirmed cases; 168 countries, areas or territories with COVID-19 cases.”

World Health Organization

The outbreak of COVID-19 allowed to slip, not into isolation, but into solitude, rooms of silence and reflect on the very nature of our existence and the perceived notion of death, that we are fearful or afraid of.

Interestingly:

Death unveils some of the profoundest and most creative expressions.

John Keats: Ode to Meloncholy, Ode to Nightingale and many of his finest compositions are testimony to this.

John Donne’s “Death, Be Not Proud,” celebrates immortality of soul. Death, he says, just a short sleep and then we meet eternally and death dies beyond that. That’s what he says:

“Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
Some of the meaningful and poignant literary pieces, books, diaries written at the times of adversities, atrocities and personal encounter with death in its varied forms:
  • Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank amidst atrocities reveals………….
  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor sings………..
  • The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch wins…………
The Wit, again, a movie casting Emma Thompson, underpins……………
The blanks are left to explore what meanings and revelations they bring forth!
And 20 March 2020 remembered for Nirbhaya’s justice. 7 years, 3 months of struggle and pain culminated into hanging of convicts. The case unfolds………..
These perspectives for deliberations…………….

COVID-19, thanks for reminding us of our mortality and allowing us to delve deeper into our continuity eternally!

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