A thought keeps coming, a flash passing by – resulting in restlessness. The very thought is unsettling, scary and crazy – to anyone in the world. Yet this process and this issue is common for every human being. Hence, I attempted…said to myself ‘let me start’.
What will be my epitaph? What should be written there? When I am gone someone will write about me – the way obituaries are written in newspaper these days. That someone could be a family member or an expert obituary writer at the newspaper’s office. Loving memory, brave man, a good father, a good mother, a good wife… thus the adjectives are endless. My birth was accidental. Neither my father nor my mother knew of my birth nor did I have any notion. Parents were not my choice, birth was not my choice – so are my name, education, mother tongue, my job & the marriage. Take any major milestone in life, none were my choices! They were somebody else’s choices. Hence, the decision to write my own epitaph. Let this be my choice! How can I best describe myself?
The more I read & the more I think I am convinced of the futility of our beliefs. I am referring to those beliefs that were given to us either emotionally or religiously. I cannot be born; neither can I die. I am eternal. I can neither be created nor destroyed. As the science believes – matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. Therefore, I can never be created nor destroyed. There is no birth, no death. If this is true, then there is no heaven or hell; no god or devil!
I can only be changed from one form to another. What forms I can change into? It is unimaginable. The universe is so vast that it is beyond comprehension… it is endless. I (I do not know who the ‘I’ is) am passing by. Where am I coming from? I do have a notion but you wouldn’t understand. But I do know where I am coming from and to where I am headed. I stopped over on earth from 1966. Why did I stop? Easiest explanation is that my eternal vehicle I am travelling is punctured. I am getting the puncture done! Coolant is over. I am replacing it! I stopped at a roadside tea stall on planet earth in 1966 for tea. I am having it now. When I finish it, I will drive away in my eternal vehicle.
Planet earth has different names in each language – ‘Tellus’ in Latin, it is different in Greek and has a different name in Hindi –Prithvi! Based on the explanation above, after introspection, the epitaph I intend to write is – ‘Stopover @Tellus from 1966 to – ‘.
The word ‘stopover’ indicates I am a traveller arriving from somewhere. It also indicates I would be departing. ‘Tellus’is a highway tea stall where I stopped over for tea. ‘From 1966 to – ‘tells the time I spent enjoying tea. Hence ‘Stopover @Tellus from 1966 to – ‘is the epitaph. If an obituary were to be published, this is what must be written.
In this roadside tea stall I see many people who stopped over for tea. You know that girl there in the corner…we stopped over together. She is waving at me, probably she maybe finishing her tea and getting ready to go. Let me go and see…
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
