Grief. Joy. Love. Loss. This virus kills them all

Pandemic or apocalypse, the cycle of life must go on. All plans and goals can be deferred, but not the inevitable. We explore how people are dealing with birth and death during the lockdown.

- Salik Ahmad

The most striking depiction of death that I ever read was in one of the Harry Potter books. It was the death of Sirius Black, a godparent to orphan Harry. While fighting in a fierce wizardly battle beside him, Sirius is hit by a powerful spell. Curving into a ‘graceful arc’, his body levitates and sails through the ragged veil of a mysterious archway, disappearing behind it. Screaming Sirius’s name, Harry dashes to pull him out of the doorway, but is grabbed by his well-meaning teacher, “There’s nothing you can do, Harry... nothing... he’s gone.”

Author J.K. Rowling doesn’t exactly say that Sirius dies. But he’s gone. Harry struggles with all his might to get out of the grip, to try and save Sirius, the closest to family he had, but in vain.

Except for the very physical passage of bodies that leave us, that is approximately how we feel and perceive people exiting our world. They disappear behind a veil, to the other side, of which we have not the faintest clue, and from where there can be no retrieval. Religions have guided our imaginations, helped us conceive of an other side. Even the sternest non-theism restores us to primordial matter: perhaps death is a bridge between philosophies. But it still does not illumine life. Clueless about what to do from this side, we often turn to religion, like we do for all things that lie beyond the fief of human capability. We perform the last rites as ordained by religion, pray for the departed soul. And for the voiding that has happened, we come together and seek support in each other’s company.