IN DARK TIMES, PREPARING FOR THE WORST
HT’S editors offer a book recommendation every Saturday, which provides history, context, and helps understand recent news events
The second wave of Covid-19 has devastated families, homes and communities across India. And, as the death count increases and loved ones suffer, it has forced everyone to confront the fear of mortality. This week, we recommend a book we wish we did not have to recommend — politician-scholar Arun Shourie’s Preparing for Death. Released in 2020, as Shourie himself began reflecting on the end, the book is a sombre and important examination of perhaps the one certainty in life, that many citizens are grappling with today. Going back to texts across religions, philosophical traditions, the final days of religious figures and saints, Shourie’s work is both clinical and deeply moving.
For many in the pandemic, death has not come with a warning, and you cannot be prepared enough for death, but this is a valuable resource in these dark times.