Skip to main content

 

Dying a Thousand Deaths

 

“I died a thousand deaths” is a strange term to use when facing an embarrassing situation. Much like the Urdu phrase ‘Chulu bhar pani mein doob marna’  - to drown in a handful of water, or wish the ground would open up and swallow one, or to curl up and die, when the sense of mortification is so great that the only way out seems death. The word mortification, the feeling of complete humiliation, itself comes from the Latin word for death - ’mors’ and had a religious meaning in Christianity: ‘ to put your sin to death’.

Is death the final rejection of an unacceptable situation? In February this year Aaron Bushnell, an active US Air Force servicemen, set himself on fire in front of Israel's embassy in the US.  He called out ‘Free Palestine’ as he died, writing earlier ‘I will no longer be complicit in genocide’.

In the Japanese Samurai code of ethics, Bushido, there was no fear of death, only the fear of dishonor.  Honour could only be regained by committing ritual suicide -"seppuku." However, most people do not go to such extremes. Some resign from their jobs, some become whistle blowers, while some work hard to change unacceptable policies. They metaphorically die a thousand deaths, with each dishonourable or illegal action taken by the organization, family or country they represent.

Ernest Hemmingway in his novel Farewell to Arms, wrote ‘The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one’, his version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who dismisses his wife’s concerns for his safety with ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.’ This is different from the Urdu phrase ‘Sher ki aik din ki zindagi geedar ki sau saala zindagi se behtar hai’ -one day’s life of a lion is better than a hundred-year life of a hyena. The Urdu phrase is about personal glory and honour. Julius Caesar simply believes ‘death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.’ In other words, a person must focus on the task at hand and not worry about death which is ‘purposed by the mighty gods’.

Thousand is not a specific number, but is a hyperbole for a large quantity. A Thousand and One Nights is a much-loved collection of enthralling tales in Arabic preceded by the Persian Hezar Afsan. Thousand nights here is the time it took Scheherazade to calm down the anger of her husband. A thousand are also the desires of the poet Ghalib each of which take away his life’s breath:  hazaron ḳhwahishen aisi ki har ḳhwahish pe dam nikle. The poet Allama Iqbal speaks of the thousand years the narcissus cries at its inability to see - hazaron saal nargis apni be-nuri pe roti hai,   referring to a politically divested nation. The many deaths generated by unrequited love compels Aasi Ghazipuri  to write  Hazaaron ki jaan le chuka hai yeh chehra zer e niqab ho kar – a thousand lives have been taken by the veiled face of the beloved.

The beauty of Helen of Troy is described by Christopher Marlowe as the face that launched a thousand ships, referring to the deadly battles that took place to rescue her from her abductor, Paris. Author Albert Camus writes ‘Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.’ 

Death by a thousand cuts is a form of torture and execution once practiced in Imperial China. Today it has become symbolic of the slow progression of broken relationships from marriage and friendship, to political alliances and economic exploitation. Taylor Swift sings about a broken relationship:  ‘I can't pretend it's ok when it's not. It's death by a thousand cuts’.  International Development Consultant Sanjay Gupta, despairs of the poor and underprivileged ‘dying a thousand deaths through indignity and incompetence’.  Death by a thousand cuts as a political term refers to the slow incremental injustices that initially go unnoticed such as the displacement of Palestinians that began 77 years ago.  

One imagines, being face to face with the recent 35000 deaths and 80,000 injured in Palestine, each health worker would feel they have died a thousand deaths. Nevertheless, to die a thousand deaths is infinitely better than being Too Dead to Die, the title of a 2022 US graphic novel.

 

Durriya Kazi

May 18, 2024

Karachi

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

+

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Decorated Trucks of Pakistan

International Institute for Asian Studies / Association for Asian Studies / Asia Committee, European Science Foundation First International Convention of Asia Scholars Leeuenhorst Conference Centre, Noordwijkerhout , Netherlands , 25-28 June, 1998 Panel: “ Shaking the Tree: New Approaches to Asian Art” / Session: Decorated Transport Decorated Trucks of Pakistan Durriya Kazi June 1998. Karachi Meaning is always in process, what has been called “a momentary stop in a continuing flow of interpretations of interpretations”. This paper pauses at some facts and some observations about decorated trucks of Pakistan , a subject that has elicited tantalisingly few studies. Pakistan is often presented geographically and thus historically as the corridor of land between the mountain passes that separated the near East from the plains of India . Less mentioned and more significant is its identity as the valley of the River Indus which has historically ...
Post a Comment
Read more
  How Much is Enough? Most discussions about what is considered ‘enough’ centre around money and power. To be the most powerful, the wealthiest or the most famous, once the desire of mighty kings and despots, has now filtered down in modern societies, with rags to riches stories becoming commonplace. However, the modern world is increasingly characterised by insatiability, an inability to say “enough is enough”, and an insatiable desire for more money or power. Enough means having enough to live, enough to be happy, and enough to thrive. So how does one arrive at what is enough? Enough is not a number. Individuals have their own measure of enough. The wise know what that limit is, for others, society’s limiting systems — legal or moral — determine when enough is enough. King Ashoka won a battle against the Kalinga kingdom, with 100,000 deaths and even more taken captive. That was his ‘enough’. Appalled by his own ruthlessness, Ashoka became a Buddhist, dedicated to spreading th...
Post a Comment
Read more
  ‘o Travelling Together or Going Our Separate Ways We live, and have lived for centuries, in a politically and economically divided world.   Unable to accept these differences, there is always one group that takes the further step of dominating another. The most direct way is for a stronger group to take over a weaker group by sheer force. Where the two forces are equally matched, subterfuge, divide et imperia – divide and rule, is effective. Sometimes all it takes is cultural seduction. Something as innocuous as blue jeans became an important symbol of the Free West during the Cold War. Bruce Springsteen told the East Berlin youth in a July 1988 concert “I’m not here for any government. I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”   History books are filled with the constant constructing and dismantling of alliances, based on the perceived enemy of the moment. All the great wars in Europe, India and China ...
Post a Comment
Read more