Right to Die

The debate has remained alive over the years, but ambiguity remains

- Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

The news was, 
He had been taken to the morgue 
Last night—when the crescent moon had sunk  in the darkness of an early spring night 
He desired to die 

Wife was sleeping next to him—so was the child 
There was love, and hope—which spirit, then, 
Haunted him in the moonlight—why did he wake up? 
Or, he may not have slept for ages—resting in the morgue now.
Is this the sleep he wished for? 

Asked Bengali poet Jibanananda Das in his 1938 poem Aat Bochhor Ager Ekdin (A Day Eight Years Ago), speaking of a man who went to the peepal tree in the solitary, impenetrable dark after moonset, carrying ropes, “knowing that human beings don’t get to know the lives of birds and dragonflies.” He tells the story of a man who was not refused a woman’s love or the desires of a married life. Nor was he ever under financial duress. Is it this normalcy that left him lying in the morgue? The poet hints so.

“I do know 
Women’s heart-love-child-home–aren’t everything; 
Nor wealth, achievement, or affluence– 
There is an imperiled wonder 
Playing out 
In our blood; 
It tires 
Wears us out; 
That exhaustion is absent 
In the morgue; 
He lies therefore on the table of the morgue 
Flat on his back.