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The pain carved deep. It triggered other memories long buried in the oblivion of his subconscious. The groundless feeling of litter helplessness which he felt at the sudden departure of his mother flooded him again. He relived the unexpected loss of his little companion, his younger sister. He recalled Usha's own prophetic words as she admired a flower — "Sometimes I wish my life could be like that — short but complete."
He recalled the horror and shakiness he had experienced when three of his college classmates had had their lives cut short through accident or sickness. A dark cloud of fear had crept over him at those times.
His memory was haunted too, by a clear recollection of a sight he had seen that year in Mysore. He had watched a procession of officials, soldiers, elephants, and horses take the second richest and most powerful king of Mysore, Krishnarajvadiar, on his last journey. There on the cremation ground he had seen this man, who had held position, power, possessions, and wealth, turn into a handful of ashes. Then he had witnessed the army, the elephants, and all the regalia turn around after the ceremony and return to the palace, leaving him who had been king abandoned, lying alone upon the pyre.
"He is now nothing but ashes,” he had thought, “Is this achievement? He had to go with empty hands."
After his own severe illness, it was as if one life had come and gone. And yet the thread of love had remained to link him to this world, to unite him with life. Now that thread snapped. He had come full circle.
He experienced vairagya - turning away from the world. He was no longer the four-year old child who could still look to the stars for their tender promise of mother. This time his turning away had no easy answer.
Where have they gone, my loved ones? Where has my beloved gone? What is the point of living if everything we hold dear departs from us sooner or later?
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