Death cafe Auroville

Death cafes have been something that came to my life whose power I didnt know about when I found it.I remember me not going to a death cafe in Bangalore because I didnt see anyone registered for the event on Facebook and in fact 4 people turned up.After so many journalists covering the story, It has indeed become a movement it was designed to be.

Today's Death cafe felt like the first one since I was at place where the information can be closed or extremely fluid, its either /or situation mostly.I hadn't put out posters, there wasn't any newspaper writing about it nor did the local "news and notes" agree to publish the event since it wasn't held in any community in Auroville but a cafe.I expected to drink coffee alone , enjoy a muffin and take a slow walk back.It was fifteen minutes to the meet and still no one and I pulled out my book, then I just decided to go look once for familiar faces and I found one.Niketana- A person I met during a permaculture course, who now works in an organisation that I adore called Eco femme and has become a sister-was there sipping her tea.

After the hug, I sighed celebrating the space and time we would have since no one seemed to know about what was happening in a table across theirs.It felt like a secret we were keeping. We spoke about our work, and about the inner emptiness that cannot be filled by it even during your peak productivity,  almost as if this lacuna was kept there on purpose so that we cultivate silence?, she mentioned about how she lit a lamp and made peace with her fathers death  that happened during Diwali, later in the session one of us would bring up how these deaths really seemed unfair!

She left for another meeting, promising to meet me tomorrow.In walked two more friends, one who came to meet another friend and check out the event together and other who came just because I had sent and Invite.Then there were two people I met a year ago over a drive in movie and had an all nighter with- She happened to be in Auroville and introduced me to another person.They brought in two more people- one who was almost forced to come and kept going back and forth to the canteen ( she already mentioned that she didnt like talking about it as it would play on her mind at night)

We started out with why we came there- there was of course the usual, "To see what is there to talk about death." There was also "..So that I can crack morbid jokes here in peace." another person wanted to see why she feared the dark so much.The discussion on our experience of someone else's death for the first time sprang spontaneously when one of us spoke about all cousins being locked in a room around Grandmas funeral, about how she was told matter of factly and was promptly put back on the bed.

Another person spoke how at the age 11, he discovered that Adults cry as well and what a disturbing realisation it was for him, especially when it was his father who had died.He had seen death only in movies till then he said.

I shared the book that I was reading written by a hospice volunteer, " When Evening comes" and then I suggested a small exercise which they all agreed to. We made a list of top 5 things, people, places, activities that we loved, and/or were important to us and we worked our way to one .The next part is a secret- Its like situational humour, you cannot do it else where.

What makes me ease up every death Cafe is that the people who come curate the discussion, I just have to ask only the first  ( sometimes first few) questions.This seemed like a discussion where everyone had what they wanted, People who wanted one on one had that, people who stayed belonged to almost the same age and the people who left attended the parts most important to them.

I try to close the meet as consciously as it was opened and we share about one discovery about ourselves and what one soft spoken women shared has remained with me.She said, " I realised the need to speak up, I thought that I thought about stuff, but when I decided to speak up, I was able to organise it. I really had to think and clarify it." The one who didnt want to be a part of it said, "I realise that I am not the only one uncomfortable talking about Death and it feel like its okay."

Every death Cafe is a discovery about how much space is created when we release ourselves off the weight we carry or free the energy that we employ to keep the beach ball under the water surface.Once its allowed to be seen, its just a colourful sphere floating harmlessly!I am looking at having a few more in Pondy before I leave, maybe one in a hospital for doctors and one in a university along with the regular one at coffee shop. What contribution can truth be when its not denied?