Once I gained my consciousness in the hospital, I was just faintly catching with my eyes the view in front but ears were quite clearly hearing people talking there. Someone was asking, “I always used to find Bhai (brother) quite healthy and never heard of falling sick so seriously, how it happened suddenly?”
Tired voice came in reply, “His own carelessness brought him this fate. Writing bent pressing the chest day and night resulted into this bad condition. If we try comment something, he always repeated – ‘Do not stop me while serving the literature’ and this plight is the result of his stubbornness alone.”
Then there was another remark – “Oh! One should take care of his own health! He also suddenly left such a job in so good a Bank just saying that he ‘did not get time to write literature.’ What does one get from our society by writing literature? What more should I say - it is a common practice here to forget the name of the writer even the very next day he is dead and it is only to be pitiful being a writer or an artiste in our hypocritical and ungrateful society.”
Slightly reclined with upper half of the body resting on the bed raised to make respiration comfortable enjoying additional oxygen and additional conversation as I was trying to fall asleep, all of a sudden from somewhere the thought of the topic ‘waiting for the death’ came to my mind. One after another my mind thought of Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal and thereafter that of Mahakavi Deokota lying uncomfortable waiting for the death at Aryaghat near the Temple. Sickness brought him to the last stage in the deathbed I felt hearing some voice feebly coming out of his trembling and dry lips, ‘I am burning, I am in the fire of universe…’
Only a few days ago I had read it again and remember Dom Moraes in his memoir Meeting Deokota in Deathbed had mentioned – ‘…The face which we saw was only a mask, dry and thick lock of black hair hanging on his head. Below the head was a nice forehead, he opened his eyes a little to have a glimpse of us. Face below eyes was lifeless. Cheeks were sunken, his lips were dry and flaked like that of most old people. But I found two long hands like wooden sticks, sandy brown arms slowly raised together in a Namaskar. Then his beautiful eyes were closed, remained on the side he was reclining. His hands went hanging. He took a deep painful breath and was a bit restless with each respiration. … After some time when Gupta introduced me he just opened his eyes for a while. His eyes were cloudy, lifeless like a lake; they were already dead as far as I believe. They brightened if some of our conversation moved them. Just for a little while, only for a few seconds. Those eyes gazed only. A thin hand was sunken inside the bed. I caught the hand with my both hands in a grasp. They were cold and dry. A long silence prevailed. His wrinkled mouth opened painfully. Very slowly with some effort just a word came out of his mouth:
‘Brahmand-dahan’ (‘Universe Burning’)… *
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Sharad Chettri (born 1947 Darjeeling) is a prolific writer better known for his short stories that earned him sobriquet, Kathako Kamdhenu (goldmine of stories) but he is also a poet, essayist, dramatist and critic. He has 30 books to his credit. He was awarded Bhanubhakta Puraskar (West Bengal 1986), Sahitya Akademi Award (New Delhi 1986) and Ratnashree Gold Medal (Kathmandu 1988). He has been felicitated ( our Karuna Smarak Samman 2005) and interviewed often. His works appear in newspapers and periodicals regularly and many have been translated into Hindi, Bangla, Assamese, Telegu, Oriya besides English.