You Need A Perspective To Navigate Your Mortality — Facing death as an atheist means you don’t believe in an afterlife. It can impact both you as a person and your loved ones, your caretakers. It can make you anxious sometimes. It may create challenging situations around your non-religious end-of-life wishes. Like god-loving or god-fearing individuals, your impending death…

Beyond tears. Grief enhances the brilliance of love. — Grief is a uniquely human experience. It is a thread that weaves love into the fabric of our lives. It is a complex emotion that often leaves us feeling raw and vulnerable. Yet, amid sorrow, a poignant paradox exists: grief serves as a gentle reminder of the enduring power of…

The Mortuary Monuments of Rajasthan — Chhatris stand not merely as structures, but as storytellers. The Rajputana region, now parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, witnessed an era where honor was preserved beyond death, and remembrance was etched in stone. The royal cenotaphs, with their imposing presence, embody the narrative of a civilization rich in tradition…

Is it possible to synthesize the loss and improve through repair? — There is an old story. In the late 15th century, Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436–1490 AD), a Japanese military dictator, sent his damaged teapot to China to exchange it with another one. “However, as celadon porcelain ware of such a high quality was no longer available in China then, the bowl was…

The Story of Indian Karni-Bharni Paintings — Karni-Bharni is a compound word. It means ‘reap as you sow’ in Hindi. Karni is translated to deeds, and Bharni is return in Hindi. This is the philosophy of Karma, which every Indian is aware of, but I am referring to a painting tradition here. This painting tradition originated in…

Marsiya is the poetry tradition of the Islamic world — Each language has its own relationship with pain. And when sorrow exceeds the limits of what can be expressed emotionally, it often takes the form of poetry. Marsiya is that poetic form of grief in Arabic and Urdu. The marsiya is an elegiac poem recited to express emotions on the…

How artists imagined his death over twenty-three centuries — A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient. — Alexander the Great After a long and tiring campaign, Macedonian King Alexander’s army began a long march back home from India in 326 BCE. But Alexander got sick in Babylon and had to stay there to get better. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated further, and he died on 11 June 323 BCE. His body…

Movies portray battles as glorious, but they were quite gory and brutal — Films often glorify medieval battles, but fighting with bladed weapons was scary. The words that best describe them are slicing, chopping, cutting, cleaving, incising, and piercing. These words today identify with the job of a postmortem surgeon. In truth, blade fighting was a violent, brutal, ferocious, and incredibly effective method…

Attendants, pets, and valuables were part of burial in Moidams — India is home to pyramid like structures called Moidams. These tombs in Assam are actually graves of kings and their families. Tai-Ahom clan, who migrated from China in the 12th century, was the builder of these tombs. These burial mounds are similar to the pyramids of Egypt in terms of…