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As the days go by, I find that I have less desire to write and more inclination to sing or paint or the best yet: just keep quiet and express nothing.

And you won’t believe the fabulous weather that is inspiring such morose thoughts. Morose for others, that is. I am in Bangalore, the sky is grey with thick dark clouds on a Monday evening. A cool, soothing breeze is providing refreshing succour to my battered body and I am thinking of good thoughts of tall, high mountains, dark green trees and blue open skies.

And I’m thinking of death and life. I would take a photograph but it’s too much trouble and would interfere with my pondering. 

There are so many dead, so many, and most of them sooner than their time … and I dare not think of what could have been, dare not miss them, dare not let the veneer of life crack; Lest, life itself comes to a standstill. And then where would I be? And more importantly, where would my family be?

Mourning and grief are an indulgence and the trouble with indulgence is that there is a price for it, and too often the price is paid by others.

So I guess to understand whether death changes life and whether it can do so permanently, I have to first examine the very nature of life itself.

I am not sure whether this is the time for such an examination, but given the fact that these questions have been troubling me since my early teens, I figure I best get started now.

So does death change people? I guess it does, specially if its your own death. The lack of a tangible body would raise some adjustment issues. As would the changed environment of existence, not to mention the conflict between the presence of a will to do things and the absence of a physical presence.

The death of a loved one, on the other hand, seems to require a different kind of change and that’s what I am thinking about today: how does death affect people? Does it change people? Is such change permanent? Can it be?

Why am I thinking of change in the first place? What do I want to know and why do I want to know it?

Why do people troop to people’s houses in trickles spread across days to express their condolences? Why do people express condolences? What are their motivations? Are they sincere about the loss? Why are they crowding the living room? What is the purpose of the mourning period?  

Right now, I just have questions.