Approaching the end of life, you look back, the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies. With the wisdom gained over decades, one’s outlook about life, and hereafter, often begins to change
Of Death and Dying
By Asif Javed
Williamsport, PA
“Praskovya Fedorovna Golovina, with profound sorrow, informs relatives and friends of the demise of her beloved husband Ivan Ilyich…The funeral will take place on Friday at 1 PM.”
Thus begins The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy then takes the reader through the way Ivan Ilyich’s colleagues respond to the news: Having thanked God for having spared them, they begin to think of the implications of his death on their career, oblivious to the fact that death awaits them too. The story takes us through the life of a Judge who has done well in his career, worked with a cold discipline, was a social climber but lacked empathy. In short, he has lived his life just for himself.
The death and the process of dying, though inevitable, is terrifying to most. There is great variation in the way we respond to it. Approaching the end of life, you look back, the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies. With the wisdom gained over decades, one’s outlook about life, and hereafter, often begins to change.
Mirajee, a pioneer of azad nazam, was hospitalized in Bombay in 1949. Ijaz Batalwi, later a famous lawyer, was on his way to London. He heard of Mirajee’s sickness and visited him at the hospital. This is what he writes:
I found it difficult to recognize Meeraji due to cachexia. He was reading a book. I asked if he was surprised at my visit. “Nothing surprises me anymore,” he responded … during my visit, the patient next to him died that made Meeraji visibly scared. In that gloomy atmosphere, Meeraji asked for his rosary, closed his eyes and started moving the rosary beads between his fingers…A priest with a cross in his hand turned up and offered to pray to Jesus Christ for Meeraji who reminded the priest that the week before, the priest had prayed for the patient who had since died. An embarrassed priest asked Merajee, “How long since you have been here?” “Since eternity,” said the bohemian poet who once wrote:
Nagri nagri phira musafer
Gharka rasta bhool gaya
The traveler from Lahore died in the charity hospital of Bombay a few days later.
Decades later, another meeting took place between Ijaz Batalwi and another giant of Urdu poetry, Noon Meem Rashid, in London. Rashid was leading a quiet life in a retirement community. The two friends met in an Italian café and reminisced about old friends. Rashid told Ijaz about a retired Englishman that he had come across. This Englishman had served in India before partition and kept on talking of the magnificence of Peshawar. Rashid felt that it was not really the splendor of Peshawar that the Englishman missed; it was his youth, his longing for the bygone era.
The conversation then turned towards aging. Rashid sounded apprehensive about his health: he was getting scared of travelling. He was about to publish what he called his last collection of poetry. When asked why last, he made two observations: he did not want to repeat himself like some other poets. Also, he did not want to outlive his utility as a man. Rashid died a few weeks later. The above-mentioned collection of poems turned out to be his last. His Italian wife got his dead body cremated that generated a lot of controversy.
Hakim Ahmad Shuja, a man of many talents, wrote short stories, plays and poetry. His stories were in such demand that Sohrab Modi of Pukar fame, bought four of them for one lakh rupees in the early 40’s. It was with his renowned father’s help that his son, Anwar Kamal Pasha, made many successful movies in the 50’s and early 60’s. His best days behind him, Pasha was leading a quiet life. Ashiq Batalwi, an old friend, returned to Pakistan after twelve years of exile in UK and visited him. Here is Batalwi’s narration of their last meeting:
Hakim Sahib used to have a wide circle of friends. But over time, it had dwindled to just a few. Other than an occasional visit to Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr, he was spending most of his time at home. With passing years, he appeared to be very lonely. Both daughters had been married off and were happy in their lives. His only son was preoccupied with his work. Before my return to London, as I went to bid him farewell, he embraced me and broke down. I was so moved that I myself started crying.
The two friends were not to meet again. In a moving obituary of his friend, Batalwi calls Hakim Ahmad Shuja’s passing the end of an era. It was in their last meeting that Batalwi persuaded Hakim Ahmad Shuja to write the history of Lahore’s historic Bhati Gate. The booklet that came out of Shuja’s pen turned out to be the most authentic history of Lahore’s Chelsea.
Ahmad Bashir was terminally ill. His family was keeping a vigil at the bedside. The dying father noted the mutual affection of his children and said: “The reason you are so close is because I am not leaving any assets behind. If I did, you would have been already worried about your share.” One day he suddenly asked: “When will death come?” The veteran journalist, a diehard communist, was not afraid to ask the obvious, though painful, question. His daughter Neelam, who later wrote his obituary, does not report the answer given; he died soon afterwards.
Khushwant Singh, the Indian writer, once wrote that he was only afraid of death worried about pain and suffering. Beyond that, he was ready for the inevitable. For him, “death was a final full stop beyond which there is a void that no one has been able to penetrate”. His wish was granted: the agnostic writer, reportedly, died without much suffering at 99.
Pitras Bokhari who had served as the Principal of Government College, Lahore, and Director General AIR before partition, had moved to the UN. Fluent in English, he used to dazzle his fellow delegates with his oratory. Back in the 50’s, he visited London on an official assignment from the UN. His old friend Ashiq Batalwi met him there. This is what Batalwi writes:
Pitras asked me where to start. In response, I quoted a verse of Iqbal. Having heard that, Pitras went into a trance and then, in a moment of despair, with tears in his eyes, said: “Ashiq, we have wasted our lives and have nothing to show for it.” I responded by saying that we had done our best within the limitations of our abilities and circumstances…I did remind him about his decision to leave academic pursuits for AIR. “Did you not waste ten best years of your life in AIR rather than staying and teaching at Government College?” Pitras agreed that he had made a terrible mistake… The two of us then started to talk about Lahore, its people, the colleges, poets, dramas, politics, and the rest. We laughed and shed tears in a cozy hotel room in Hyde Park, oblivious to the thick fog of London and the noise of Oxford Street outside. As I bade farewell, Pitras made me promise to return the day after to take a stroll in London…we did meet and kept walking the whole day in Central London … we talked of old times, discussed the friends, living and those who were not. I was alarmed to notice that Pitras’s laughter had lost its vigor. He did not appear in good health. Perhaps he was beginning to sense the inevitable…the next day he flew off to Geneva…having returned to New York, he wrote me a long and interesting letter.”
Pitras and Batalwi were not to meet again. Pitras, who has the distinction of having a poem of Iqbal addressed to him in Zarbe Kaleem, died in 1958 and was buried in New York.
Barrister Manzoor Qadir (MQ) was one of the best legal minds in Pakistan. Son of a celebrated father, Sir Abdul Qadir, he had served as Pakistan’s foreign minister and had later been Chief Justice of Punjab High Court from where he resigned to concentrate on his legal practice. Khushwant Singh once wrote that he never saw a more upright man than him. MQ was agnostic. In 1974, he was admitted in a London Hospital. Ashiq Batalwi visited him. A visibly sick MQ was happy to see his old friend. After the usual pleasantries, MQ asked Batalwi something that surprised him: MQ wanted Batalwi to read a certain verse from Mosadus-e- Hali:
Wo nabyon mein Rahmat laqab pane wala
Muradein gharebon kee bar lane wala
Batalwi read the desired lines aloud and noted that MQ’s eyes were full of tears. After a few recitations, also from Hali’s Mosadus, MQ’s condition took a sudden turn for the worse; he died the same day. Altaf Gauhar had visited MQ in CMH Lahore a few weeks earlier, notes that in his last days, MQ had discarded agnosticism, had been reciting the Qur’an, and had developed a firm belief in God again.
The Duke of Wellington had developed a reputation of being reserved. Unlike his famous adversary, Napoleon, who was adored by his men, Wellington was aloof. The day before the Battle of Waterloo, he described the men under his command as “the scum of the earth”. Years later, as he lay on his death bed, he was asked of any regrets. The man who had defeated Napoleon and Tipu Sultan, and had been PM of Great Britain named one: “I regret not having thanked the men who put their lives on the line for me”. The Iron Duke’s perception of life, and people around him had started to change as he approached the abyss!
Back to Tolstoy’s story, they say that a patient with a fatal disease passes through four stages: initial denial, followed by anger, then depression, and finally, acceptance of his fate. It seems that Ivan Ilyich did the same:
“Ivan Ilyich became bitter and refused to believe he was coming to the end of his life…Reflecting on his current situation and his past life, his world view began to change…he realized how meaningless his life had been…Slowly he came to terms with his imminent death…and died in a moment of exquisite happiness.”
(The writer is a physician in Williamsport, PA and may be reached at asifjaved@comcast.net )
