Death cafes
25% of people say that curiosity is the reason that has brought them to the Death cafe meet. for others it is being a voice for suicide prevention, to listen to different perspectives, "because its the only space available" , to meet new people and the list is endless.
It started when I was working on a project called, "What constitutes a Good death? In-depth interviews with 25 people at a hospice." I was talking to people, 10 patients, 5 carers and 10 staff of the hospice and asked them a series of questions and studies four of them.
Would they wanter doctors to talk to them about death , that is more than "breaking bad news" ?
What do they look for in a doctor during the end of their life?
What do they think about organ donation?
What would be the preferred place of Death?
I started talking to everyone involved and the most unwilling to talk about this were not the terminally ill but the people in the hospice who cared for them.Meeting people was difficult, they were very often 'Busy' to talk about this and one doctor refused to have this conversation.out of 30 questionnaires given to the residents only 3 were returned.It is not new , the same thing is reported to have happened in Canada when the health professionals refused follow up calls after the questionnaire assessing their views on it with respect to their practice. We who associate ourselves with caring, medical or otherwise find it extremely difficult to reflect on this, we are busy of course given the doctor patient ratio and the value of research that is placed in relation to medical practice comes from a place of not translating/being able to translate the information into practice.
I was jokingly, sometimes not, told, "Why are you so obsessed with Death?" or "Please don't associate palliative care with Death." second one well meaning for the distinction is important for people who might read my work especially at the stage information about palliative care is available to public in India.There was clear discomfort and often outright reluctance about this.
When I started researching on other ways to do it, I came across the concept along with many others.I think in terms of creating an experience to raise awareness and hence more inclined towards use of art with any concept.I will write about them in the following posts, but the concept of Death cafe stuck most with me.This way I could open it up for the public and hear from them too.
With great trepidation put them out.In two cities, when I didnt receive any replies on Facebook, I decided that it was going to be a phantom event and decided to do more "important" things ( I am guilty too) than to show up and face the absence, to the contrary people came and they wanted to speak, Tito Chandey, the owner of Courtyard cafe said, "They really looked like they wanted to talk." when I met him the next time.
The first one in Hyderabad happened for an exclusive group on the way back from a road trip, not in a cafe ( in a cemetery) like Jon Underwoods first which was not in a cafe ( at his place), ones that followed were at gallery cafe and Lamakaan , known spaces in Hyderabad.The conversations ranged from cryogenic preservation, suicide, funny reactions to death, relation between death and weddings, colours and death, art and death , vedanta and death, near death experiences, experiences of transformed people when their loved ones die.
Many people thought of Death Cafe to be a fixed place and one reporter came to meet me and went all fiery when he asked, "What is the outcome?" what will I get if I attended say 10 sessions of Death cafe?I ve had to tell him that it was neither a support group or educative meet, just open space to share. I recall the reaction of the person who waited on the table we sat and another of a person who came for another meet , on hearing about us, walked to the door, came back and asked,"Do you talk about death that has happened or that of a fictional nature?"
The meets are increasing in number and we had one in a school, children from the age 5-15 sat around and spoke what they thought about death.We recently had a movie called, "whose life is it anyway?" screened at Lamakaan after the death cafe.
I have found a few people to be regulars and seen how they change as I do , they seem to listen more and more . Jon Underwood passed away recently and I would like to thank him for addressing this need and to all the people world wide who made this into a movement, though its sad that we need a movement for being able to talk about Death.
It started when I was working on a project called, "What constitutes a Good death? In-depth interviews with 25 people at a hospice." I was talking to people, 10 patients, 5 carers and 10 staff of the hospice and asked them a series of questions and studies four of them.
Would they wanter doctors to talk to them about death , that is more than "breaking bad news" ?
What do they look for in a doctor during the end of their life?
What do they think about organ donation?
What would be the preferred place of Death?
I started talking to everyone involved and the most unwilling to talk about this were not the terminally ill but the people in the hospice who cared for them.Meeting people was difficult, they were very often 'Busy' to talk about this and one doctor refused to have this conversation.out of 30 questionnaires given to the residents only 3 were returned.It is not new , the same thing is reported to have happened in Canada when the health professionals refused follow up calls after the questionnaire assessing their views on it with respect to their practice. We who associate ourselves with caring, medical or otherwise find it extremely difficult to reflect on this, we are busy of course given the doctor patient ratio and the value of research that is placed in relation to medical practice comes from a place of not translating/being able to translate the information into practice.
I was jokingly, sometimes not, told, "Why are you so obsessed with Death?" or "Please don't associate palliative care with Death." second one well meaning for the distinction is important for people who might read my work especially at the stage information about palliative care is available to public in India.There was clear discomfort and often outright reluctance about this.
When I started researching on other ways to do it, I came across the concept along with many others.I think in terms of creating an experience to raise awareness and hence more inclined towards use of art with any concept.I will write about them in the following posts, but the concept of Death cafe stuck most with me.This way I could open it up for the public and hear from them too.
With great trepidation put them out.In two cities, when I didnt receive any replies on Facebook, I decided that it was going to be a phantom event and decided to do more "important" things ( I am guilty too) than to show up and face the absence, to the contrary people came and they wanted to speak, Tito Chandey, the owner of Courtyard cafe said, "They really looked like they wanted to talk." when I met him the next time.
The first one in Hyderabad happened for an exclusive group on the way back from a road trip, not in a cafe ( in a cemetery) like Jon Underwoods first which was not in a cafe ( at his place), ones that followed were at gallery cafe and Lamakaan , known spaces in Hyderabad.The conversations ranged from cryogenic preservation, suicide, funny reactions to death, relation between death and weddings, colours and death, art and death , vedanta and death, near death experiences, experiences of transformed people when their loved ones die.
Many people thought of Death Cafe to be a fixed place and one reporter came to meet me and went all fiery when he asked, "What is the outcome?" what will I get if I attended say 10 sessions of Death cafe?I ve had to tell him that it was neither a support group or educative meet, just open space to share. I recall the reaction of the person who waited on the table we sat and another of a person who came for another meet , on hearing about us, walked to the door, came back and asked,"Do you talk about death that has happened or that of a fictional nature?"
The meets are increasing in number and we had one in a school, children from the age 5-15 sat around and spoke what they thought about death.We recently had a movie called, "whose life is it anyway?" screened at Lamakaan after the death cafe.
I have found a few people to be regulars and seen how they change as I do , they seem to listen more and more . Jon Underwood passed away recently and I would like to thank him for addressing this need and to all the people world wide who made this into a movement, though its sad that we need a movement for being able to talk about Death.
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