Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Writer Arthur Koestler chose death when he thought that his productive life was over. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease as well as leukaemia. He was a member of an organisation called Exit which supported people’s “right to die with dignity.” Koestler was 77 when he gulped down an overdose of barbiturate tablets. He didn’t want to continue the agony of his existence. I defend his decision to end his life with dignity. But I don’t accept what his wife Cynthia did. She was in her 50s when she chose to die along with her husband. She loved him so much. That was the reason. Was it necessary to end her life just because her beloved man was dying? I don’t want to judge her. Maybe, she would find life unbearable without her man. She could have given it a try, I think. I defend euthanasia with my whole heart in cases like Koestler’s. But not in those like Cynthia’s. When one is suffering from a terminal illness and it is certain that there is no chance of recovery at all, one s...

Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug passed away this morning.  She lived 42 years in a bed of King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.  A brutal rape had rendered her comatose.  The rapist spent seven years in the prison and became a free man.  His victim lived in a vegetative state as a question mark on many things. The most controversial question her life raised was about the limits and possibilities of euthanasia when Pinki Virani, writer and human rights activist, moved the Supreme Court seeking euthanasia for Aruna in 2011.  Can anyone choose another person’s death however absurd that person’s life may be?  This was the question that the apex court was faced with.  Obviously, the court decided against Virani’s choice.  Yet can we blame Virani for what she did?  She was being compassionate to Aruna.  Compassion and justice need not always be on the same side of morality.  That was one of the paradoxes raised by Aruna’s life. Ar...

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) committed suicide.  His wife too committed suicide on the same day. Koestler was a great writer.  Parkinson’s disease and leukaemia enervated his spirits.  Below is an extract from the suicide note he wrote. Trying to commit suicide is a gamble the outcome of which will be known to the gambler only if the attempt fails, but not if it succeeds. Should this attempt fail and I survive it in a physically or mentally impaired state, in which I can no longer control what is done to me, or communicate my wishes, I hereby request that I be allowed to die in my own home and not be resuscitated or kept alive by artificial means. My reasons for deciding to put an end to my life are simple and compelling: Parkinson's disease and the slow-killing variety of leukaemia (CCI). I kept the latter a secret even from intimate friends to save them distress. After a more or less steady physical decline over the last years, the process has now reach...