It was 12 August 2006, my birthday. The day was Saturday, the second Saturday of the month, the day of the parent-teacher meet. I always used to skip this meet because, I, quite frankly, considered it pointless. But on that day, I was in my school practising for the zonal badminton tournament which was less than four weeks away.
I had to come back home in the middle to fetch something — shuttlecock or money, I can't remember. A squirrel came under the front wheel of the rickshaw on my way to the home. It suddenly came out of nowhere and rickshaw puller couldn't apply the brakes in time. The squirrel died in a few seconds spewing a lot of blood. That's probably the first time I saw a living object dying.
Every single time I see a squirrel, I find myself reliving that harrowing moment. Every 12 August, I remember that squirrel.
I have a very muted response to death. Death makes you philosophical, momentarily. Death reminds me of something which I read in my seventh standard English literature textbook by Oxford University Press.
“Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world──the fight for the Liberation of Mankind”
— Nikolai Ostrovsky
