Death - 7

वक़्ते - आखीर युँ ही मुँह में लकड़ी देकर 

फूंक डालेंगे तुम्हे लाड़ लड़ाने वाले 

 पारसी थिएटर 

Death - 6

Men fear death as children fear 

to go in the dark; 

and as that natural fear in children 

is increased by tales, 

so is the other.

- Francis Bacon

Death - 5

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

Edgar Allan Poe

Death - 4

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.

Virginia Woolf

Death - 3

हो चुकीं 'ग़ालिब' बलाएं सब तमाम 

एक मर्ग-ए-नागहानी और है

Death - 2

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, 

for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.

Albert Einstein

Death - 1

From my rotting body,
flowers shall grow
and I am in them
and that is eternity.
                           - Edvard Munch

चलो की दफ़्न हो जाएँ, ज़रख़ेज़* ज़मीं लगती है 

कल इसी मिट्टी से शायद मेरी शाखें निकलें  

गुलज़ार

*Fertile 

Death - 0 (The beginning of the end)

December always gives me a feeling as if someone is dying. And every year, year after year, I found it was the year that was found dying through December.

But death, unlike life, is not so bad or painful or difficult. It's easy - you just have to lie there!

Anyhow, this month of December 2014 is for death. You know why? Because death is a poem. Remember what Gulzar wrote for 'Anand' and Rajesh Khanna recited:

मौत तू एक कविता है

मुझसे एक कविता का वादा है,

मिलेगी मुझको

But this is not to mourn the death or the dead. This is to celebrate death as once in a lifetime event. So don't be sad or disgusted or sorry. Just remember what the gentleman and lovely statesman poet Atal Bihari Vajpayee once wrote:

जन्म दिवस पर हम इठलाते, 

क्यों ना मरण त्यौहार मनाते, 

अन्तिम यात्रा के अवसर पर, 

आँसू का अशकुन होता है।