The Countdown has Reached Last but One

One day, I began to think about people who were once my contemporaries. These were people who were born around the time when I was born (about a century ago), people with whom I had travelled through the journey of life, people I had walked with. I had seen Mr. A alive, but today he is not in this world. Mr. B, Mr. C, Mr. D, Mr. E—all these people too have met with the same fate. In this way, I recalled many people I knew. I realized that all these people had died, so much so that I recently heard that Mr. Y, too, has also died.

I fell into deep thought. These words issued from my lips: “The countdown has reached the last but one letter of the alphabet!”

Then, I thought that this isn’t just a personal affair of mine, something that applies to me alone. The fact of the matter is that it applies to everyone else too! Every day, we see or hear about other people dying. But, surprisingly, few people seriously think about their own death. No one thinks that he could die that very day or even the next moment! People’s minds are constantly occupied with issues of the life before death. But about matters related to the life after death no one feels the need to think deeply.

This is an utterly strange phenomenon of not knowing despite knowing! We know we will die one day, but we behave as if we never will! We hear about people dying every day, but we think that we will never meet the same fate!