To Leave
When the British ruled India, Calcutta was for long the capital of the country. Then, in 1911, the British decided to shift the capital to Delhi. The British architect, Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), prepared the plan for the new capital. Construction work began in 1913, to the south of Delhi, and soon a magnificent city—New Delhi—came into being.
This was a time when a new political wave had overtaken much of the world—that of nationalist movements. These revolutionary stirrings had undermined the very rationale of colonialism. A freedom movement had established its roots in India. It was evident that British rule in India would not last very long.
After New Delhi was established, a French leader came on a visit to India. When he came to New Delhi and saw the grand buildings of the new capital, he commented, “What a magnificent world they built to leave!”
This is not the story of the British in India alone, however. In fact, it is everyone’s story. In this world, every person has his hopes and desires. He expends all his energies on building a grand palace of his dreams. But just at the time when has finished constructing his dream-palace, the Angel of Death suddenly arrives and whisks him away from the world where he has toiled so hard to build his palace, taking him to what the Hungarian-British writer Arthur Koestler (d. 1983) aptly terms as the ‘Unknown Country’.
If this is all that life is, it would be an absurd and painful story. But just as everything in this world is complete only with its pair, this world, too, has a metaphorical counterpart—the Hereafter. If someone lives oblivious of the Hereafter, his life is definitely nothing but a complete tragedy. But for one who avails of the opportunities of this world for the sake of a good future in the Hereafter, his life here on earth is a valuable step towards a new and more successful life after death.
Without the Hereafter, a human being’s life is just meaningless passage of time, ending in sorrow. But if you live with an awareness of the reality of the Hereafter, your life can become profoundly meaningful.
