Waiting for an appointment at a doctor’s chamber is one of the more boring experiences in life. Pharmaceutical companies do provide the docs with subscriptions of major magazines, but the copies on the corner table are always many issues old. The doctor who is responsible for ridding me of my ailments (for a price of course), in addition to the frayed magazines, also houses a small bookstore, 15-20 books displayed on a shelf marked ‘Books for Sale,’ handwritten in blue ink.

A friend who was accompanying me on one of these wearisome waits, pointed out a book. It was titled in Hindi, Maut se Bhay Kyon? (Why Fear Death?). Leafing through the poorly typeset (on moveable type) slim volume, one sentence towards the end stood out – “Jeevan vishakth karta hain, mrityu shuddhikaran ki prakriya hain.” It translates to, “life contaminates and death is the purification process.”

Nothing wrong with the philosophy, but at a doctor’s chamber?

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