A CALMER YOU

Amid quite the tamasha about you-know-what that hogged headlines all of last week, a small news item on the inside page of the newspaper caught my eye. And then my breath.

A 39-year-old software professional complained of chest pain and uneasiness in the morning. When taken to the hospital, the doctors declared him dead due to a massive heart attack. His 36-year-old homemaker wife was in utter shock. She came back from the hospital, went up on the terrace of their eight-floor apartment building, and jumped. To death.

It was an unbelievably sad piece of news but reading till here still didn’t numb my senses. What followed did. The couple left behind their only child, a five-year-old daughter, who was blissfully playing at the neighbour’s house when the cops came knocking, broke the news that both her parents are dead, and handed her over to relatives. There. The news ended but left me, and I’m sure a million others, with a deep sense of sadness and a sinking feeling for the child.

Now, I know nothing more about this particular case, and it would not be right for anyone to sit on judgment on the circumstances that made the woman take such a step. But the incident left me with a lot of stress, and a lot of questions. And one big, dark Don’t run away from the mention of death: Yes, death is a disturbing thought. In a survey about what people fear the most in life, ‘death of a loved one’ ranked among the highest, across the world. So the stress of discussing it with family is understandable. But what of the stress the loved ones might have to undergo if you suddenly vanish from their lives one day. If there are practical things you wish they knew in the event of your death, you have to tell them. Just do it sensitively — you don’t want to have a crying