Whenever I die! (An ode to life)
Whenever I die,
Whatever happens to my body should be decided by me.
To the county I was born in, to the religion which my family follows,
To my family, my parents, my wife, and my children,
I would like to give just one thing — the thumb of my hand.
This thumb, they can dispose off as per their rituals.
Everything else goes to scientists and doctors.
If my death is not sudden and even a bit predictable,
O Doctors & Scientists, take full control of it.
Play with my spinal cord,
Or use my brain for your experiments.
Split it open or insert electrodes in it,
To see neurons transmitting signals or the pain centres illuminating in your fMRI.
O Doctors & Scientists, use it the way you like.
Unlike my family, religion, or country,
You have the unrestricted freedom.
Hope that helps you understand mysteries of human body a little better.
Once I am dead, take out all my useful organs,
My eyes, my heart, my kidneys, liver, lungs,
Or whatever can be transplanted.
Let them help some other human live longer and happier,
Hopefully to do some good for the world.
Use my cadaver in the best possible way.
Let future doctors, scientists, and science students gain some skills.
Let them cut open my body, observe it, and sew it back.
Their hands and their minds, after all, will serve this world in time not too far.
When my dead body has served its purpose,
And when it has been cut open, sewn back, cut open again and sewn back,
Do not burn it as per customs of religion I was born into.
Do not exhume it through incineration either,
As O Doctors & Scientists you habitually do.
Instead, bury it in earth, without any rituals or prayers.
Dump it silently without any words of condolence or consolation,
For it to be used by those mighty microorganisms.
The microorganisms, who make all soil fertile,
Those invisible organisms that make all life possible on earth.
Leave it there for them to break the body down to its base elements,
And make my flesh and bones useful.
I will thus come back to life,
As other microorganisms,
Or as grains of wheat, as a vegetable, as a mushroom.
Maybe as some plant,
Or maybe, just as a blade of grass.
(Deepak Maun)