Approaching Death
Author: Mallikarjun B. Mulimani
Pages: 80
Year of Publication: 2019
Price: Rs 300
ISBN:
978-81-941819-3-4 (9788194181934)
About the Author
Mallikarjun B. Mulimani, born on 17 September 1979, is an Electronics and Communication engineer, turned writer. He initially wrote poems and later took up writing short stories, novellas and novels. So far, he has given birth to sixteen books, four of which have been published by Writers Workshop, India: Abstractions (a book of poems and digital artwork), The Holy Plumber and Other Stories (a book of stories with a poem for each story), Operation Epiphany ~ God’s Journey on Earth (a novel) and Dams across the Flow (a novella). His other works include Victims Incorporated – Circles of Sub-consciousness, a novel published by Current Publications, Agra, and What Happened to My Creativity?, a novella self-published by CreateSpace. Five of his latest novellas: Star Ride to Nirvana, Bhakti Sans Religion – Dilemmas in the Search of One’s True Inner Self, Politics – A Love Story, Buddha In A Mercedes and A Writer’s Zen, three of his latest books of poems: Poems to Myself, Alternative Haikus, Poems for Us and two books containing long single poems: Selene and A Mariachi & A Philosopher on Wheels, were published by Leadstart.
About the Book
In his foreword to the book, Professor M. I. Savadatti writes:
“Approaching Death is the story of Aryan, a well-educated young man, in search of the meaning of life and death. The story explores the confusions, conflicts of emotion, feeling and reality while trying to understand death and its effect on people around, when he witnesses his grandmother’s death.
Aryan’s intellectual journey to understand death leads him to two concepts: “mental death”, where a person, though physically alive, is mentally dead; and “physical death”, that is death. His crying need to understand takes him to the Varanasi ghats, which enhances his understanding and also confusion but he runs into Shalini, a doting daughter grieving for her dead father. A common chord of suffering is struck.
Later he sees her in a state of mental death as she is totally rejected by her family for loving her drunkard father, and invites her to come and get healed in the warm love of his parents.
Shalini and Aryan wander, in search for the meaning of life, the lanes of old, forlorn, derelict persons and wonder how is it they can live and why is it they have to suffer. Both realize they get peace when helping people who are forgotten by society and find meaning in making them smile and decide to work together as soulmates to serve them and make them feel cared for.”