Henry Guss' Interview:
Davendra Bhagwandin's Interview:
Michael Perez's Interview:
It was not surprising to see that my peers had similar thoughts to each other when asked about death and taking care of the dead. They all said it was a gloomy affair that not only affected the deceased’s family but almost everyone around them. Michael mentioned that death is a strange thing because it is a very depressing situation but it can unite people in ways most happy situations cannot. Michael and Henry were against the practice of an open casket because seeing a dead body is enough to scar you for life and seeing the dead body of a loved one would be even more traumatizing. In one of the funerals Davendra attended, he got to touch the body of his deceased relative and he recalled that experience as eerie because of the body’s cool temperature and sleeping posture. When asked how they would be laid to rest, two of them, Davendra and Michael, preferred cremation and Henry jokingly said he would like to get stuffed and haunt his descendants for generations, but I think if asked to answer seriously, he would have picked cremation as well. Davendra and Michael said they preferred it because that is what they have been accustomed to in their lives and standard burial does not particularly grab their interest.
Henry’s perspective as an atheist brought up some interesting points pertaining to what will happen after death. He said the Universe will cease to exist after he dies, not because he is an extremely self-centered person but because he thinks the Universe exists according to his imagination and when he dies, his mind will no longer be there to imagine, and hence neither will be the Universe. Davendra’s family’s funeral rituals were very religiously influenced. He comes from a Hindu family where it is tradition to burn the remains of the deceased and since there are laws in the US which only allow cremations and burials, his family had to travel to Guyana so they could burn his grandfather’s body in a more traditional way which is to burn it on pyre.
When Davendra said that it was a sad affair that affected the deceased and the people around them, I found it a little funny that the deceased was the least affected by the whole ordeal. This led me to think that death is the ultimate method of relaxation because you cannot be bothered with anything. I asked Henry what he thinks should be done with the masses of dead bodies that “litter” Japan’s now highly irradiated areas, his response was that they shouldn’t try to bring the bodies to safer areas if it means it’ll result in harm of other humans. Even though Henry did not particularly say this, but his response made me think of the dead body as an impure thing. Which is what Hindu culture considers dead bodies as as well, Hindus try and limit as much physical contact with the deceased as possible because the when a person dies, they no longer belong on this world and are thought of as anomalies. This made me question the rudimentary thinking of some cultures viewing death as something that should be respected while others consider death as to be a form of evil.
