What are People?

Some of them are just names. Ramanujappa, Ravi, Paul....

Some of them are faces, they twist into a smile when they meet you. But when we don't see them, we don't miss them.

Some of them are words, they make you see and hear them.You know them, you interact with them. There is this space that they occupy near you.

But few of them, are identities. People who make you feel them. They talk to you. They are with you. You change with them. Sometimes, for them. You smile with them. You smile for them. They make you smile. They point this way and you see a part of life. They point that way and you see a differnt life

And then one day, they die.

And then you ask yourself. Why did this happen to me? It was so comfortable having them around. Couldn't they stay with us for some more time ?

There is a story of a Yaksha who asks Yudhishtira this:
Qn: What is the most wonderful thing in the world?

And Yudhishtira replies:

Each day there are many that die and yet the rest of us watching believe ourselves to be permanent. That is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Poignant, and yet painfully true.