Death Cafe- An overlooked resource?

The concept of Death cafe fell into my life as gently as a frangipani on a lap.While researching on what constituted a good death, i came across constant diversion from the topic among all groups in the society ,( I hadn't spoken exclusively to children at that time.) sometimes there was a silence reminding me of how inappropriate the question was at that time( which was all the time) and others when there was laughter and polite " Why talk about it when we have life to live!" implying, "we'l-see-it-when-it-arrives" remark.

This raised a lot of questions inside me, on one hand there was annoyance about never being able to know an important part of the people I was talking with (in few cases they were close friends), there was also clear reminder of how sheltered we keep ourselves from other parts of us.

There was also a realisation about the denial of Death in our social sphere, perpetuated by constant preparing for later, be it in terms of money, skills, relationships, without acknowledging that later.It is also true that the later never included frailty, oldie, disease or end of life. Somewhere that later was eternal youth , eternal working- Though it is very ironic to note that most often I have found people say that they would like to live to 50-60 years till they work.

This view is also enforced by our colonial/western mindset that does not give talk about value without associating itself with utility. "Of what use will I be when I am old or diseased ?" "What happens to me, my points of view when I am no longer listened to ?" and we all know how much we listen to and heed the advice of older people.My point being we have lost the Indigenous heritage of having "Elders" who are active socio politically.

Another very important evidence of the danger of this form of silence was with regard to important legal change that  would never reach its beneficial hilt if we persisted in this manner.I am talking about Advance Directives. After Aruna Shanbaugh's case, the Indian Court has brought this term forward and both Lawyers and people from the heath fraternity are having a dialogue about the benefits and disadvantages and contextualising it in our Indian setting.With our refusal to talk about the subject, the law even if passed will never be utilised until the very end ( which is no the best time to make the directive anyway)

 The first Death cafe happened in the living room of the founder John Underwood who passed on june this year, Inspired by Cafe Mortale from France, Death Cafe was developed to be a social Franchise , a safe confidential space where people from all walks of life could come talk about Death in order to make the most of their ( finite ) lives.

They happen all over the world and according to the last count , in sept 2011, 5322  Death Cafes have taken place. In India 18 have taken place( Though I have been gently accused of not posting about the event on the Cafe's website)

What is beautiful about the design is that it is on no expert model, it is not meant to be an educational "class" but always turns out to be educative.It is not for profit , it can be facilitated by anyone attended even one session of Death Cafe and most importantly it happens along with tea and cakes.

The topics have ranged from  Cryo preservation of the body, reincarnation, similarities between weddings and funerals, immortality potion, Advance directives,priorities of life, Death playlist, The blue whale,changes which are long pending,Euthanasia, suicide contemplation, handling of the body after death , organ donation .Each group brings out its own set of contemplations.

Through Death Cafes I have found that talking about death is not something we as people would avoid if we found community to hold space for it, that we would like to be the community to hold that space for others, that talking about death could help us make very important decisions ( or atleast act on them) about how we live our lives, that death always need not revolve around the dying process, that talking about death includes a lot of lightness and laughter, that talking about death brings the whole person in view, that slowly, over time it makes us see and be affected by our mortality.

Death cafes have proven to be a very important tool to talk facilitate end of life discussions, and end of life discussions are conversations that the space of Death Cafe naturally brings out.The question is " Are we making use of this old medicine of conversations and story telling?"

Please check

http://chaibisket.com/death-cafe-hyderabad/