ডাকবাংলা

I have been fortunate enough through the last two years to not have lost any close family or friends. I’ve still seen far too much death around me. There was a time when we wouldn’t blink an eye on seeing bodies (yes, multiple) carried by hearses passing us by as we walked down the streets. The last year-and-a-half has been a horrific reality. 

Death has always been a very big deal for me. I cling onto the process of grief as if it’s my way to somehow remain close to those I’ve lost. At the same time, I’ve noticed a certain numbness, if not indifference, that this pandemic has brought on with regard to death. This feeling is not something only I have been experiencing – several friends of mine have spoken of the same. Anyone who talks about this disease and the death it has been causing makes it sound almost casual, like small talk. 

I was catching up with one of my childhood friends last evening. She told me she lost her aunt recently, and a few months later, her grandmother, as well as a very close family friend. How was she coping with it all? Her words, and I quote, “I’m fine, just a little exhausted with all the deaths this year.”

There is a detachment that wasn’t there the first year, everyone was beyond panicked. But it seems as though, slowly, the human mind has adapted to push even something as permanent and constant as death to the back of their minds. I don’t know if this change in mind-set is temporary, but I would definitely imagine that it would leave a pretty indelible imprint on young minds. It may very well entirely alter how their/our thought-process in general would have normally been formed as they/we grew up. 

Love and Death, these two phenomena are the most discussed, most written about, most obsessed over themes in human history. Yet, as we step into this new era, Death is so rampant, it seems to be losing its significance. And if Death, the greatest loss one can imagine, loses its significance in society, does the ability to love, to form attachments also deteriorate? 

What does that mean for the young people of this generation whose minds are most influenced by the consequences of this pandemic, these being the most impressionable and defining years of their lives? Does it mean we will slowly stop being able to make deep enough attachments, because to us the stakes will cease to ever be that high? If we are conditioned to stop fearing Death, or treat it with a certain nonchalance, in my mind, that translates as losing the ability to love, despite a catastrophic fear. There will be no love intense enough to transcend the fear of Death, because Death will have lost its gravity. Perhaps I’m just an over-thinker, and I may be stretching it to the extent of a Black Mirror episode, but even those are ultimately rooted in reality. 

I’m no psychologist, but if Death is so easy, if losing someone is truly so easy, why would we want to invest in deep emotional attachments at all? If we did, despite acknowledging this reality, it would make all of us masochistic, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps it is the opposite, it may also make our ability to love even stronger, considering our constant realisation with regard to the fleeting nature of life and how very precious every single moment is. 

It may propel us to be more real or it may push us entirely into hiding ourselves and our emotional make-up through dark humour and superficiality. ‘Memes’ aren’t this popular without a reason. Honestly, in my opinion, it could go either way and to varying degrees. Let’s just hope it doesn’t actually escalate into a Black Mirror episode. 

Illustration by Suvamoy Mitra

Read in Bengali