Right to Fall from Grace

Right to Fall from Grace

Every person who enjoys a social statue earned by years of labor is always scared of society. He does not want to fall in the eyes of society. The society is conservatives, thrives on tradition and laws of puritans is its backbone. So you can never expect society to be "open minded", pragmatic, revolutionary and ahead of its Time. They do not change their rules easily. So they do not appreciate your falling from grace. Shakespeare in his sonnet 94 says-

"But if that flower with base infection meet

The basest weed outbraves his dignity"

The sin was committed when forbidden fruit was eaten and repercussions are still faced by the innocents for doing what they think is right. Even that society is not in the making which would permit an honest person to fall from grace without feeling guilty, insulted and conscious of it.

It needs braveness on the part of society to society in permitting people to fall from graces with dignity. Unfortunately, society is a bundle of callous, redundant and imbecile minds who collectively form a collective conscience, which is their mirror image, illuminated manifolds.

Those who do not want to follow the dictum of society are labeled as epicureans, and put in a prison of isolation or in the company of the same types like criminals or quarantined to save the honorable members of society from contamination.
Alfred Lord Tennyson was against providing any liberty so far as chastity and purity of home was concerned. Though he expected both husband and wife to follow the ideals. No amount of passions, however true and intense it may be, can excuse in his eyes for violating these ideals. Chastity and purity are not obsolete, and will never be obsolete.
                       "The Woman's cause is Man's;
                         They rise and sink together"
So fall of one is fall of another also.

Right of Dead to decent Burial

On the other hand same society has forgotten the age old Right of dead to decent burial. We are not talking the deads of a commoner, though it is debatable if the dead body of a king is superior to the dead body of a pauper, even many dignities were subjected to disgrace which brings shame to the whole humanity. The dead bodies of Saddam Husain or Osama Bin Laden were subjected to so much harsh treatment that one would wonder how much civilized we are.

In Shakespeare's famous play Julius Caesar, Octavius says

"According to his virtue, let us use him

With all respect and rites of burial"

What made him think like that. He could have easily thrown the dead body of Brutus in the Mediterranean unceremoniously. Can a dead body be an enemy of anybody?

"The leaves of Grass" are being crushed by those who were supposed to protect it. What is their hope after this destruction? 

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  World is Conical'