A Happy Ending to
the Tragedy of Life
The counterpart of this world is the Hereafter. The happy ending that all of us long for will be a reality if we never lose sight of the fact that there is a life after death.
The capital of British India was initially Calcutta, but in 1911, King George V announced the transfer of the capital to Delhi. The British architect, Sir Edward Lutyens (1864-1944), was commissioned to design the new capital, and construction work commenced in 1913. Eventually, the city of New Delhi came into existence and was one of great magnificence.
During this same period, the whole world was swept by a new political wave: nationalism, as progressive trends in political thought, had rendered the colonial system of government untenable. Moreover, the freedom movement in India was fast gaining momentum, and it became apparent that British rule in India would not survive for long. The completion of New Delhi thus, ironically, coincided with the decline of the British Raj.
After the construction of New Delhi, a French political leader paid a visit to India. When he saw the glittering palaces and spacious mansions of the new capital of British India, he summed up his impressions in these words: “What a magnificent world they built to leave.”
This is not only true of British India but all of us in this world. We come into this world full of desires and aspirations. We do our utmost to construct a “magnificent world” for ourselves. However, just as our dream world takes shape, the angel of death visits us and takes us away from the world we have worked so hard to construct. We are then taken to what Arthur Koestler called an “unknown country”.
If that is all there is, life is a tragic story. However, like everything else in the universe, this world can only be considered complete when taken along with its counterpart. The counterpart of this is the world Hereafter. For those who have forgotten the next world, this life is nothing but a tragedy; but for those who look forward to life in the present to build their personality for the Hereafter, this world becomes an invaluable step toward a new, more successful existence in the next world.
The happy ending that all of us long for will be a reality if we never lose sight of the fact that there is a life after death.
