When you live long, you die more than once…

I read about the death of yesteryear’s actress Achala Sachdev a day after she passed away. She died at a ripe age of 91 after prolonged hospitalization on April 30, 2012 at PHRC, Pune. The news report gave some account of her body of work and mentioned how she spent her last days alone.

A few weeks ago, there was a similar account of how character artist A.K Hangal was battling penury and was finding hard to even pay for his medical expense. There are numerous similar examples of people who saw glory, fame and riches in their prime but died in appalling conditions. Nadira, who was one of the first Indian actresses to own a Rolls Royce once spent the last  three years of her life alone. The story of Bhagwaan Dada’s rise and fall is also told often in the same context. I am sure if one looks around, many more such cases are not hard to find.

Hard to say if it is the old age alone or the simple fact that all these people did not plan for the winters in their lives, but the very realization of the fact that there might be a day when simply getting up and sitting down and performing day to day routine tasks would become an ordeal is by no means a happy thought.

Every one has to die eventually. It is the ultimate truth and the final destination but somehow people spend their lives without realizing that one day it shall all end and all that you win, achieve or earn would be either inherited, squandered or forgotten by those you leave it to. There are many philosophies and Gurus around teaching people the art of spending their lives. I wish there was someone around telling people how to die and breathe their last in peace with a contented heart and an enlightened soul knowing that your time on this planet was well spent.

I guess I am a little lost here. I am not necessarily a Gerontophobiac (suffering from fear of growing old) but somehow the James Dean’s famous quote - ‘Live fast, die young and have a beautiful looking corpse’ makes much more sense when I think about the subject.

However, coming back on the topic about Achala Sachdev’s demise, I thought she was one actress with a genuine warmth oozing out of her personality. Beautiful and versatile, she was one of the first graceful on screen mothers – something which perhaps Reema Lagoo imbibed in her roles decades later. I guess her much remembered role was that of an all loving, all sacrificing stereotype mother of three in Balraj Sahni and Rajkumar starrer ‘Waqt’. The song ‘E meri zohra-jabeen..’ and a demure, smiling Achla ji comes to mind.

May she rest in peace.