17.08.2026
It is with sadness that we read of the death of Jason Arday. Such a senseless death from a media witchunt, whatever the reality of the claims of plagiarism. One understands suicide. But one is against it.
Camus wrote that there was only one philosophical question. Whether or not one should live. Whether or not one should commit suicide. Camus said that to kill oneself is to accept and become defeated by the meaninglessness of life. Whereas one should learn to accept that life is meaningless but to make meaning from it. To persist despite everything.
The Indian answer to whether life is worth living comes in many forms. But what is emphasised is love and duty. Whatever thoughts come, dark thoughts, there is always the mother that gave birth to us that would be devastated by our loss. There is the duty that we owe to our parents and family to look after them.
This idea of love and duty is thousands of years old. In the epic, The Mahabharata, the character Bhisma can choose the time of his own death. The reason he does not die is because of love and duty. He had to preserve the dynasty, the kingdom and teach and educate those that he loved and cared for. The children and the future.
Bhishma’s story is all about triumphing over death and suicide. His mother came from heaven and killed all of her babies except for Bhisma to liberate them from the suffering in the world. The reason he survives against his own will and his mother’s will is because of love, that his father the king wished him to live (and for the dynasty). He himself wants to die to escape the world and its pain but does not.
Then, Bhisma was a warrior. We come from the warrior culture. It is regarded as cowardice to kill oneself. And also shameful. The family would have to live in dishonour afterwards and one’s name would be tarnished. One has to live to fight. Life is a war. The duty is to live.
Bhisma’s story unravels another strand of the philosophy and duty to live. The thoughts of suicide come when one is all alone. Suicide happens when one is alone. However, Bhisma exemplifies that we are never alone. He is wrapped up in the web of others. His duty is to the dynasty, the kingdom and the people. He does not think of himself as a lone man. Bhisma wanted to die. He did not because of human relationships and what the Buddhists would call attachment.
One can add to this that Bhisma waits for the right ending, the auspicious time to die. He doesn’t let failure create the ending. Jason Arday let failure create the ending. The idea that everything is finished. One cannot accept the bad ending. One has to look for the right ending, keep on picking oneself up after failure.
In Indian philosophy, to fight against death, one takes up the warrior mantle of Bhisma. Even when one dreams of death, one forces oneself to live. The dream of suicide? When one is all alone, when one is truly free. And the answer to this dream? To remember that we are attached to others. One is bound by others. One has duties. One has to create the right ending. Because of love.
diary of a lone man 