Til Bhar Tulana: The Final Final

The final final. The big event. It’s coming.

I learned a lot about the final final, i.e. death, through the process of composing the upcoming Fall Release: “Til Bhar Tulana” (originally by Pir Sadardeen).

It’s about death, and therefore it's necessarily about life. Listen and you will feel both caution and excitement.



When I was eight, the death of a small child in Jamat Khana (my faith community’s local place of worship) compelled me to write poems about the End. Maybe I was naive for my age, but I didn’t realize people could die so early in life. Because of her, life and death became worlds I wanted to explore equally .

I wanted to know what happened to her. Where the heck did she go when the car crashed into the other car? Did she suddenly become a part of the air? Or the ocean? I knew I’d seen that kind of thing happen in the movies: where the person turned into soul or gas, then particalized further and disappeared into the elements.

I was curious about death then, and I am curious about death now. Like the heavy sword hanging over Damocles' head (held by a only strand of horsehair!), death feels close. It makes me feel like every moment is full and fleeting.

“Til Bhar Tulana,” as far I understand it, is about reflection upon one’s self. Checking to see whether you’ve stayed upon the straight path. A path which is narrow as a sword, and when walked with the right mindset and right deeds, can give you the kind of happiness your soul has been searching for.

I was only eight when the tragedy happened, but I felt like I needed to do everything in my power to understand the process of transitioning to the next world: read about it, write about it, embrace it and love it. Thanks to my efforts, I realized that leaving this planet is nothing to be afraid of.

We walk in and out of lots of places, Earth is just one of them.