How To Say Goodbye?

Stepping on to a New Year my foremost thought is how to say goodbye. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Bidding adieu does not only mean parting ways it is much more than that.

This particular thought is more relevant because I will be superannuating from my Organization pretty soon. An Organization which has been my lifeline for almost more than thirty five years. I have grown working, quite literally, in this prestigious corporate sector of which I am very proud. I am sure this belongingness will never die though I will not be physically at my desk from nine to five. It is strange how we get attached to this abstract notion of being a part of an infrastructure howsoever mammoth and concrete be it. I have always been very aware of the fact that I am just a cog of a very huge machinery. The machinery may not remember me after a while but my contribution, though meagre, will remain as my signature and stamp in its continuity. Perhaps this is just my wishful thinking but I love to believe that it is so. The show must go on and it unstoppably will but somewhere I will be there in its rolling progress, if not in body then in spirit.

Parting from the old signifies opening up of a new chapter. It is the unwritten law by which life moves on to which perhaps we don’t give much thought. I recall the lyrics of Roger Whittekar’s famous song “the first time that we said hullo began our last goodbye.” Every sublimely beautiful moment has its transience embedded within. But it is more important to let go the darker memories – our baggage of remorse, repentance and guilt. So difficult that is. So painful to carry on with it as well. Life sustains on hope. With time all wounds heal. We learn to unlearn, forget and forgive. And one fine day we realize we are no longer burdened with our pasts.

However, no syllabus on Earth teaches us to deal with the ultimate truth- the eternal parting of our near and dear ones. Although we all know it is inevitable yet we struggle to come face to face with it. The present day focus is on living a meaningful and useful life because it is too short to spend on petty squabbles. All issues giving rise to friction are insignificant and to be considered momentary. Are they really?

It is morbid to dwell on death. Why? Is it our psyche to evade that which is formidable, unknown and leaves behind an enormous, unfilled vacuum? Recently, I saw a film which pivoted around this theme. A scattered urban family comes together on the mother’s untimely demise. The dysfunctional relationships prevent them from living fully that moment of final goodbye until a roaming dervish teaches them the importance of life and death. Accepting death is like coming back to your roots – the bare truths wherein all your worldly entrapments fall apart. Tagore, in many of his songs, has written about his preparedness to meet the end once his earthbound functions and duties are successfully completed. I think that is the best way to proceed towards afterlife with a sense of attainment without looking back.     

However, it is not the epilogue. There is much to achieve beyond. That is why it is said that this ever expanding cosmic play of which we are a miniscule part has no beginning, therefore, no end. It goes on till infinity and takes us forward along. That is how mere mortals are immortalized. That is how we all are amritasya putrah – the blessed offsprings of the deathless.

So finally there is no saying goodbye just floating on the currents of the river of life towards the gleefully soaring waves of an ocean of eternal existence. We die along! We live along!