Today is my b'day, or my death anniversary

It's my birthday today, Shiv .

Today is the most special day in my life, in everyone's life. Today is my date of birth - and everyone else's. It couldn't be any other way. Life is changing so much, so fast and so suddenly and so unpredictably that unless I am born afresh every moment, I will be left behind - way behind - by life, which is constantly on the move. I will be dead. Dead forever. Non-revivable. Today is my birthday -and yours. Constantly up-dateable.

If it isn't, then the next moment, most probably this moment itself, would make this day my death anniversary. The choice before us - all of us - always, every day, every hour, every moment is between being born again and dying, between making today our birthday or our death anniversary.

I know it for I have died too many times, and have remained dead for too long. Luckily, this time, I rise from my grave to recount my death, and to make sense of it. And the only sense I make of it is that if I still happen to be alive by some chance - gasping for breath - then I must allow or force myself to be born again. As a fresh child, with a fresh outlook, and able to revive all my dead moments, able to bring those moments back to life and put them to use in the service of my today. This is sheer luck. But this luck isn't reliable. It will not happen every time. If it has happened by chance or through a stroke of luck, then I mustn't be foolish to take it for granted that I will definitely be living till tomorrow. I must finish everything I need to- and everything I can - today, right now, here. There is no guarantee I will live till tomorrow, but if I don't make my today count as strongly and significantly as I can, then it is guaranteed that I will not see the light of the day tomorrow, or even the light of the rest of the day today.

I must believe in re-birth, must believe in being re-born every day, every moment. A life dies out with each passing breath, creating space for a new life to be born in me, in all of us.

(From a letter I wrote this morning to my childhood friend, Shiv Ram Modgil )