There is so much of death around us, these days in particular, that it has seized my attention tonight. I may not write the saddest lines, or grieve intensely or immensely in personal terms. But I am drawn to this powerful theme nevertheless, and for so many reasons. I am not sure whether it has been realised the extent to which the subject of death figures in our newspapers, in our media, and in our conversations, in our lives.
One is not referring to suicide bombers or terrorist killings alone. That too. Or deaths that come from target killings or murders that seem to reflect the changing patterns of crime and lawlessness in our society. I am not even thinking of the mystery that continues to surround major political murders or those that take place on account of revenge killings. Or even sense killings.
Or collateral damage and where names don't matter. Only numbers do. Statistics-solid and sure. There is so much to be said on this theme, which came through, but somewhat differently (philosophically?) last week within a span of 24 hours. That was on 25th June (Friday) when the enigmatic Michael Jackson's sudden death at the age of 50 stunned the world. He never set foot here, but left a mark was what an English daily said with reference.
The impact of this death on Pakistanis was so visible, and it showed in the media very pronouncedly. The world has been deeply upset by his sudden death which has brought into focus both his tormented personal life, and his music that "will never die". But within the context of Pakistan there was the death of Mian Muhammad Tufail who passed away at the age of 95, after a protracted illness.
He was the Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami for 15 years, from 1972 to 1987 and was one of the 75 founding members of the Jamaat when it came into being in 1941. He died on Thursday, 25th June... and on Friday, all day, TV news channels carried his story. In his death has come to a close an era.
A letter to the editor of Dawn on June 29th said that the passing away of Mian Sahib has left behind such a pristine and beautiful legacy that words find hard to elucidate...he never accumulated personal benefits, gain or wealth."
And our politicians today? Never mind. On Friday morning came the news of the death of Kaleem Omar, an exceptionally prolific English language journalist and one of Pakistan's English poets who died of heart failure at the age of 72. One of his cousins said to me at his Soyem in Karachi that Kaleem had died peacefully in his sleep.
Two collections of poetry, published by the Oxford University Press, Wordfall (1975) and Pieces of Eight, much later, carried his verse. Sometimes his poetry also appeared in the English newspaper he wrote feverishly for. Apart from the sadness of the loss that his friends and family were left with, I am certain that his readers, will also miss him.
His newspaper readers will miss him, especially for the diversity of his passionate interests and his magical command of the English language. He wrote for The Star beginning in 1982, and the switched to The News - and that is where he remained until the end. In this end too was also the culmination of an era. I cannot help but wonder why a man who had so much to say with authenticity on so many issues, never took to the electronic media seriously, if at all.
A newspaper obituary has described him as an "encyclopaedia of trivia". Far from that Never that, really. I also wonder whether any of his eminently readable newspaper writing will be published in time to come. Which makes it almost mandatory to wonder whether the writing of so many of Pakistan's English language journalists will ever be available in book form for record, and readability, both.
And then on Thursday, the 25th of June in Los Angeles died, after a three-year battle with cancer, the actress Farrah Fawcet, at the age of 62. This news added to the sorrows of that day - and a friend of mine remarked on Friday evening that this was a particularly sad day in our lives. It brought back many memories of her, in her best days, and times.
In The Nation in his 29th June column, City Notes, M.A Niazi has asked towards the end "so what did Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Mian Tufail Mohammed, and Kaleem Omar have in common? Probably nothing, except that for someone growing up in Zia's Pakistan they helped define the 1980s." That is indeed, one point of view. In one era, are contained many smaller eras? One does wonder.
Without seeking to get into complications and controversy on this point let me return to the point about death, and quote from The Oxford book of Death which says in its introduction that "Life helps us to shape our thoughts about death, and often serves as our metaphor, the known invoked to adumbrate the as yet inexperienced. Hence to talk at all interestingly about death is inevitably to talk about life".
Perhaps this is what I have sometimes done - to reflect about death, and life, and all the related dimensions that come to mind. There is much to reflect about, what is inevitable, indeed. Death is a call we all submit to. Let me also state that for years now I have, every morning, after the front page I have switched to the city pages to look at the obituaries, which are often there.
The reasons are obvious. I may not know the person who has died, or even the concerned family. But yet I want to know. Sometimes I have known only the person who died, and so the condolence call becomes a question mark, almost. Indeed there are so many reasons. And there are so many reasons, why even funerals and Quran Khawani are never attended, adds a colleague who talks of the distances in this city, aggravated by traffic jams.
Of course I have written about death in the past, as indeed I have done obituaries. For I realise, that death understandably diminishes me. A part of us dies when someone we know has passed away.-howsoever remote be that relationship?
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